Presidents Message

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL OF MALDEF

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL OF MALDEF

As Donald Trump passed 500 days in the White House earlier in June, the parameters of the administration’s approach to critical issues of concern to the Latino community have become even clearer. After 500 days, Trump has failed to nominate a single Latino to a federal court of appeals vacancy. After 500 days, Trump has continued regularly to demonize, with false facts and vile rhetoric, all immigrants, particularly Latino immigrants. After 500 days, Trump has embarked on a federal policy of violently separating minor children from their refuge-seeking parents in the name of “zero tolerance.” After 500 days, Trump seeks to expand family detention, an inhumane abomination, and continues to demand that United States taxpayers pay for an ineffective and unnecessary wall at the southern border. After 500 days, Trump still champions a discriminatory Muslim ban, securing a bare-majority Supreme Court ruling allowing the continued influence of bigotry in immigration policy, which has historically harmed Latinos more than anyone else. After 500 days, the Trump administration has proven to be the most anti-Latino presidential administration in our history.

MALDEF STATEMENT ON TRUMP’S RACIST COMMENTS

Los Angeles, CA – Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund), issued the following statement today, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, on Donald Trump’s recent racist comments: “How profoundly troubling that on this hard-fought national holiday honoring one of our nation’s greatest humanitarian leaders – in the year that will mark a half century since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s tragic and premature death – our nation continues to grapple with a sitting president’s blatant and crass expression of racism a few days ago.