Last night, President Trump opened the 2018 State of the Union Address appealing to our values as a compassionate nation – one that helps the needy, the struggling, and the underprivileged across the world.
We couldn’t agree more. The promise of America lies in our shared values of compassion and love for our country. It does not lie in shared blood, hate, or fear.
But it is the latter vision that Trump paints of our country in the bulk of his address. Trump’s vision of America is grounded in the fear and hatred of immigrants. He heinously used the raw grief of parents who recently lost their daughters to stoke fear about all immigrants, and especially immigrant children. His four “pillars” of immigration reform pit Dreamers against all other immigrant families, painting them with a broad brush as gang members and terrorists.
We vehemently denounce Trump’s attempt to promote fear and hatred of immigrants as a unifying principle of our nation.
We will fight for a country in which we are unified by shared ideals and principles: love, compassion, hard work, and liberty and justice for all.
We will protect family as the foundation of our nation’s immigration system.
And we will continue to nurture the power of immigrant communities to make America great.