WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week in Milwaukee, an outpouring of dangerous anti-immigrant rhetoric came from the mouths of politicians, backed by Project 2025 plans to deport millions of people. American communities and people seeking safety have been the ones to suffer as a result of dangerous narrative and fear-based policymaking, with families detained and separated at the border and long-standing community members, breadwinners, workers, and caretakers snatched from their homes and loved ones.
The shameless calls for mass deportations are the very opposite of what voters have said they want when it comes to immigration. New polling this week shows that voters prefer pathways to citizenship over mass deportations by a large margin. Additional recent polling reveals that voters are skeptical of politicians’ fear-mongering, with a majority of those surveyed in agreement that politicians are using scare tactics when it comes to discussing topics of immigration. The National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) condemns fear-mongering for political gains, rejects the dangerous, anti-immigrant language being spoken this week, and unequivocally opposes all policy plans to terrorize our communities, deport loved ones, and separate families.
Said Nicole Melaku, National Partnership for New Americans executive director, “The anti-immigrant vitriol we heard yesterday and throughout this week is extremely dangerous and irresponsible. It is rhetoric like this that leads to violence in our communities, weaponizing what should otherwise be a peaceful and fair democratic process. Mass deportations would impact every American community and deprive workers of their colleagues, faith communities of their members, and children of their parents. This is not the America voters want – including the 3.5 million new Americans that have naturalized since the last presidential election and are eager to cast their vote this November. We expect politicians to act on our shared values of safety and opportunity, and create solutions that protect and empower all communities.”
Said Nancy Flores, deputy director of the National Partnership for New Americans, “As a long-time resident of Milwaukee, I am appalled by the incendiary rhetoric spewed this week disparaging immigrant communities who have contributed so much to the city of Milwaukee, and Wisconsin as a whole. Across the state, immigrant workers are the backbone of the dairy industry, fueling over 10% of the state’s GDP. And yet, we have seen this before. In 2005, when Wisconsin’s Jim Sensenbrenner proposed one of the most anti-immigrant pieces of federal legislation, Milwaukee had the largest number of people marching in the streets, protesting the measure, which ultimately failed. More than 20 years later, we see a continuation of the same, misguided, anti-immigrant sentiment. Hate didn’t go unchallenged then, and it won’t go unchallenged now.”
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The National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) is a multi-ethnic, multiracial coalition of 75 of the nation’s largest immigrant and refugee rights organizations with reach across over 42 states. Together with our members, we advance immigrant and refugee equity and inclusion, build and expand immigration legal services and integration programming capacity, and drive campaigns that strengthen democracy through increased civic participation. See our website for more information at partnershipfornewamericans.org.