Washington, D.C. – As expected, Trump began his first day announcing a slate of violent, anti-immigrant executive orders to fuel his administration’s destructive and vile plans for mass raids, family separations, detentions and deportations. Among them, Trump announced he will unleash the military against families seeking safety at the border, invoke an over 200-year-old law –the Alien Enemies Act, once used to intern Japanese-Americans in camps– to target immigrants all the across the country for mass deportations, and reinstate heinous policies like Remain in Mexico, while also attempting to attack the 14th amendment.
In the face of what is just the beginning of the Trump Administration’s chaos and destruction, Democrats at every level cannot afford to chart the same losing path forward, buckling to MAGA’s anti-immigrant scapegoating, instead of leading with the fortitude this moment demands and the conviction to reject the MAGA playbook at every turn and be on the side of working families nationwide.
Greisa Martinez Rosas, Executive Director of United We Dream Action said:
“Donald Trump takes office today more emboldened than ever to carry out destruction, violence, and terror against everyday people, families and communities across the country. If we have learned anything from Trump’s first term in office, his violent attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and his obsessions with his cult of billionaires just like him, it is that Trump cares about no one except himself. It’s clear that Trump’s priority is not the American people, but rather the billionaires who sat around him today as he was sworn in: Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and more. It is them –the wealthiest 1% in this country– who have bought their way into our government and will look out only for themselves alone these next four years.
Democrats cannot spend the next four years rolling over to the obvious political traps laid in front of them by Trump and his MAGA allies to demonize immigrants and divide working communities. They cannot accept policies that fulfill Trump and his inner circle’s most monstrous and hostile anti-immigrant vision, leaving working people and families across the country to face the destruction of our economy.
Every anti-immigrant attack unleashed, every effort to manufacture chaos in our cities and communities through raids and mass deportations, will devastate everyday people and American families, all of whom will be the ones left with ruptured cities, destroyed economies, and fractured communities. The Democratic Party must take charge over these next four years under Trump and do what they have yet to do before: lead with a truly inclusive vision for our country that protects everyday people, whether they were born here or migrated here, and refuse to lay down when billionaires threaten this vision.”