For Immediate Release
August 31, 2016
LUPE on Trump’s Immigration Speech:
“Mass Deportation Violates Our Values as a Nation”
San Juan, TX – In a speech in Arizona last night, GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump revealed details of his immigration plan. In response, La Union del Pueblo Entero Communications Coordinator John-Michael Torres issued the following statement:
How we treat new Americans reflects our commitment to the values that define us as a nation. With the topic of immigration rising to national prominence once again, we have an opportunity to reexamine our commitment to those values. Will we be a country that welcomes the stranger and prides itself on the richness of our cultural diversity and heritage? Will we reaffirm our commitment to the belief that all people are created equal? Or will we allow ourselves to be carried away by our worst fears against our better judgments?
Mass deportations violate our values as a nation and are as unworkable as they are inhumane. We cannot uproot 11 million mothers, fathers, workers, and business owners from our families and communities without devastating our communities. What would be the impact on the forest of uprooting 11 million trees? Our economy is like a quilt that grows with the addition of each worker, consumer, business owner and tax payer. All deportations cut into the quilt, and mass deportation would rip it apart.
To uphold our values as a nation, we need a commonsense immigration process, one that keeps families together, includes a roadmap to citizenship, and allows new Americans to contribute to our economy to their fullest potential. We should be talking about expanding opportunity-creating programs, like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, and getting rid of punitive enforcement programs that violate our constitutional rights, like the PEP program and SCOM.
America is a democracy where we have the power to change flawed policies. Immigrants and citizens have been working together, reaching out to elected officials at the local, state and national level to push for commonsense solutions. LUPE members invite you to join us and register, vote, organize, speak up, and stand up for our communities and the values that unite us as a nation.
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