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Washington, DC - This past Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, Trump proposed to extend limited protections for some DACA and TPS recipients in exchange for funding a $5.7 billion border wall and more. Officially a month into the government shutdown, Trump continues to pander about an inhumane and illogical border wall, in the meanwhile making disingenuous offers to immigrants and stalling hundreds of thousands of federal government workers from being able to go to work, pay their bills, or get the government resources they need.
President Trump’s proposal includes (1) $5.7 billion for the wall, without any construction plans or evaluations of the environmental damage the wall would inflict, (2) an additional $607 million for enforcement related to the wall that would be funded by new DACA and TPS application fees, (3) dramatic increases to the number of ICE jail beds, border patrol agents, and ICE agents, (4) an asylum ban for all Central American minors, and more. Offering perceived leniency towards one group of immigrants for the hyper surveillance and increased detainment of another group of immigrants is not a real trade.
APALA National President and appointee from the National Education Association Monica Thammarath stated, “The protections he is offering to DACA and TPS recipients are disingenuous. The bill only protects a fraction of all Dreamers and TPS recipients, and still leaves most of these immigrants vulnerable to deportation. Thousands of Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) have DACA or TPS status, and they all deserve permanent solutions that allow them to stay with their families. We will not trade in our brothers and sisters at the border for anything, and especially not for a limited and temporary fix. Despite the president’s divisive tactics, we persist to build solidarity with all immigrants and people of color.”
Today, APALA will join hundreds of others in a direct action to stop the government shutdown. We will occupy the Hart Senate Office building in Washington, DC. at 12PM. Join us if you can. If you cannot make it, amplify the action via following the hashtag #StopTheShutdown on social media and call your Senators.
We call on Senator Mitch McConnell to call the vote in order reopen the government immediately. We demand a deal that includes protections for all immigrants and refugees in our communities. We say “No Shutdown, no wall! America is for all!”