CAIR Coalition condemns President Biden’s plans to make an extreme anti-immigrant deal with Senate Republicans.
Last night, media outlets reported that President Biden plans to make “significant compromises” to our immigration system to secure funding for Ukraine and Israel. However, trading the safety of refugees and migrants for military funding is not acceptable.
“It is foolish to think that any of the proposed measures would do anything but hurt people. Human lives will be lost because of this decision. This is nothing more than the White House fully adopting Trump-era xenophobia to get a win on foreign aid,” said Michael Lukens, Associate Director. “Gutting asylum and other protections is not only a betrayal of the values that underpin our country, but a slap in the face of the supporters who believed the President would bring empathy, compassion, and common sense to the White House.”
For three years, we have been waiting for President Biden to fulfill his promises to protect immigrants and to make sure asylum seekers are not forgotten. Not only has he failed, but he is now actively working to make a deal that would:
- gut protections for asylum seekers,
- massively expand immigration detention,
- rollback humanitarian protections,
- make the southern border even more dangerous,
- and expand expedited removal.
The president and any congresspeople who vote for these changes are signaling to the world that human lives do not matter. That this country is okay with a cruel and draconian immigration system. We expect better.
