With Trump More Interested in Xenophobic Optics than in Urgently-Needed Measures to Address Public Health Crisis, Congress Should Reject this Divide-and-Distract Maneuver
CNN is reporting that the Trump Administration is requesting $567 million to fund, in part, up to nine “migrant quarantine facilities along the Southwest border, including repurposed soft-sided facilities originally used for the migrant surge in 2019.” The following is a statement from Pili Tobar, Deputy Director of America’s Voice:
The Trump administration is asking for money for immigrant quarantine camps at the border at a time when the priority should be on putting resources into managing the coronavirus emergency. The country needs testing, respirators, masks, medical supplies and construction projects to expand the capacity of the American healthcare system, but Trump is prioritizing political xenophobic optics over the well-being of the American people.
Let’s be clear about the motivation behind Trump’s obsession with borders and immigrants. The Trump administration is serious about building camps for immigrants, shutting off the asylum system, and branding the coronavirus as the ‘Chinese virus’ so the President looks tough and looks like he is protecting people from the foreign threat. Well, the actual threat is as domestic as it is deadly.
Congress must set priorities so that we fund what matters for managing the health and economic crisis we face, not diverting funds to the President’s border and xenophobic obsessions that distract from our urgent priorities and their mishandling of this health crisis.
