Press Release
Published on January 24, 2019
Washington, D.C.—In response to today’s Senate vote on the Trump-McConnell bill, a piece of anti-immigrant legislation that would have reopened the government at the expense of our nation’s asylum system, Human Rights First’s Kennji Kizuka issued the following statement:
Today’s vote was a callous effort to ram an anti-immigrant wish list through Congress. Thankfully, enough senators saw it for what it was, and rejected this administration’s plans to eviscerate the asylum system, which would send vulnerable men, women, and children back to danger. Those who supported the president’s plan sadly turned their backs on our long and proud legacy of welcoming the persecuted.
The administration’s previous attempts to dismantle the asylum system have failed. President Trump’s fear mongering over refugees ahead of the midterm elections were wildly rejected by voters. Now that the Trump-McConnell bill was decisively voted down, I hope that we can once and for all move past the president’s fixation with decimating a system that protects the most vulnerable among us.
During the shutdown that has affected the immigration courts, many of our asylum clients are left in legal limbo while their family members remain stranded in dangerous situations abroad. We now call on the Senate to pass a clean bill to reopen the government.
