Press Statement: ASISTA Response to National Address

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 9, 2019

Contact: Ahlam Moussa, ahlam@asistahelp.org

ASISTA Response to President Trump’s National Address

Suffield, CT – The following is a statement from Cecelia Friedman Levin, Senior Policy Counsel at ASISTA Immigration Assistance, regarding President Trump’s National Address:

President Trump’s remarks last night again demonstrate his misinformed, divisive, and anti-immigrant agenda and ignore the real crisis: the Administration has held the federal government hostage over a needless border wall and relentlessly failed to treat those seeking protection with the dignity and care they deserve.

There is no security emergency at the border. In fact, unauthorized border crossings along the Southwest border have dropped significantly to near their lowest point in half a century. The only crisis is the one created by the Administration itself, resulting in significant harm and hardship to families and children seeking safety in the United States, many of them fleeing sexual and gender-based violence.

The Administration’s treatment of asylum-seekers has been inhumane and cruel. It has separated thousands of children from their caregivers, cut the Central American Minors program that allowed individuals to apply for humanitarian relief while in their home countries, illegally blocked individuals from requesting asylum at the border, and continues to warehouse thousands of children in facilities ill-equipped to handle their care. 

In his his remarks last night, the President said, “This is a choice between right and wrong. Justice and injustice.” It is decidedly clear that this Administration’s policies are on the wrong side.