Washington, DC — This afternoon, President Biden will visit the site of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse and meet with the families of the six men who lost their lives. The following is a statement from Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“Joe Biden has been at his most powerful, most human, and most effective when connecting with real people navigating the hardest experiences possible in life. No doubt influenced by his own journey, President Biden has always offered comfort, empathy, and reminders of how America is at its best when our values and compassion inform our politics and public policy.
The men who lost their lives in the Key Bridge collapse were migrant workers doing a dangerous job to literally build America. Their stories and sacrifices are indicative of the real immigration story: throughout history and today and in red and blue states alike, immigrants are doing hard and often dangerous and unappreciated work to pursue their own American dreams while contributing and building a stronger nation for all of us. That’s the America President Biden has the opportunity to remind us of and rally around – today and beyond.
At a time when so much of the immigration focus is on the false notion of immigrants as threats, today’s meeting with the families of the workers who lost their lives is an opportunity to refocus on the real story of immigrants and immigration in America.”
Last night, in an interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, White House Senior Advisor Tom Perez previewed President Biden’s visit and noted:
“…[W]e have people suffering here, and we have relatives suffering at home. It was heart-wrenching, I can’t describe it any other way. But you know what, the President said, ‘I want them to know that they mattered. That their lives mattered. That immigrants matter.’ And that’s why he’s going tomorrow. Because he wants to tell them that himself.
That’s why it’s so important for the President to be there tomorrow because he will say to these families, ‘you matter.’ He said in the State of the Union, ‘I will never separate immigrant families, we are a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. We almost all came from somewhere else, but we are all American.
These six heroes who passed away, their kids are every bit as American as my three US-born kids. We have to honor them, and the best way to honor them is to get past this nasty, poisonous rhetoric and recognize that we are a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws.”
