SPLC Statement on President Trump’s Threat to Suspend Immigration

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) issued the following statement by Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney with the SPLC’s Immigrant Justice Project, regarding President Trump’s threat to suspend immigration to the United States:
 
“It is not surprising that the president and his administration continue to exploit this global crisis to pursue their anti-immigrant agenda. They are simply using the pandemic to advance an outrageous proposal – one that white nationalists and other anti-immigrant extremists have long dreamt of implementing. White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller, the architect of President Trump’s immigration policies, advocated similar proposals in a series of emails to Breitbart News in which he also shared white nationalist propaganda. 
 
“The administration remains consumed by racism and hostility towards immigrants, using the pandemic as an excuse to further weaponize our immigration courts, turn back asylum seekers, and now this. Our country would be in a much better place if the administration put even a miniscule amount of the energy that fuels its anti-immigrant initiatives toward solving the challenges presented by COVID-19.”

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The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Alabama with offices in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Washington, D.C., is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people. For more information, see www.splcenter.org and follow us on social media: Southern Poverty Law Center on Facebook and @splcenter on Twitter.
 
The SPLC represents immigrants facing deportation in five different detention centers.  Learn more about SPLC's Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative.