LULAC Tells Trump: Stop Scapegoating Us!
Nation’s Largest & Oldest Civil Rights Organization Tells President Trump: Lead for All, Including 58-Million Latinos
Washington, DC - The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), describes tonight’s State of the Union Address by President Trump, a litany of exaggeration, partisan goading and outright misrepresentations even as millions of Latinos including DACA recipients and TPS holders await his leadership on some of the most significant issues of our time.
“I guess this President must have been denied bedtime stories and that’s why today he’s trying to live fantasies as his version of reality,” says Domingo Garcia, National President. “Frankly, tonight’s speech was a shameful display of his imaginary accomplishments, partisan bragging, using veterans and recently pardoned offenders as props for his own political purposes, then contrasting America’s need for leadership while he and those around him are under investigation by a special prosecutor,” he added.
“Every child is made in the holy image of God, including children who are brought to the U.S. by parents desperately fleeing violence and persecution from their home countries. We must remember our history as a nation of immigrants, and remember that our founding fathers and mothers were once too strangers in this land. Most importantly, family unity is not only a basic American value but a universal human right. Immigration is an American issue and this is the time for true leadership and action,” stated Sindy Benavides, Chief Executive Officer who was brought to the U.S. at the tender age of one and undocumented. “At the stroke of a pen, President Trump can restore DACA and TPS today while Congress works on a compromise and long-term solution with a pathway to citizenship.”
As expected, President Trump fell back upon the same theme used since he announced his campaign for the presidency and kept up his steady drumbeat of stating America is under siege by an invading menace of traffickers of drugs, women and children who also bring drugs on their backs and deplete our nation’s safety net.
“It’s very easy and cruel to stereotype an entire people for the wrongs of a few just the same way we would be wrong to judge entire nations for the wrongs of past dictators, murderers and tyrants who may have once lead them,” states Garcia. “It is time for this President to cease the easy scapegoating of Latinos and get down to business with Congress and seriously work to once and for all achieve comprehensive immigration reform. Mr. President, lead or get out of the way and let someone else do what you can’t or won’t.”
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights volunteer-based organization that empowers Hispanic Americans and builds strong Latino communities. Headquartered in Washington, DC, with 1,000 councils around the United States and Puerto Rico, LULAC’s programs, services and advocacy address the most important issues for Latinos, meeting critical needs of today and the future. For more information, visit www.LULAC.org