Latino Caucus: We Will Not Let Trump Extort Our Communities

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus released the following statement in response to President Donald Trump’s recent threats that he will withhold COVID-19 related economic relief from states that do not comply with his extreme anti-immigrant agenda:

“It is unconscionable that the president would exploit a public health crisis to play demagogic political games with the lives of working families and seniors who are physically and financially suffering during this pandemic. His threats to withhold needed economic aid to states that are welcoming to immigrants is simply another chapter is his amoral playbook, written to distract from his failures by cloaking them in his racist, xenophobic rhetoric.

“We strongly condemn the president’s villainous attempts to turn us against our immigrant families, friends and neighbors by extorting us in our time of need. The Latino Caucus will not allow our immigrant communities to be left behind and any attempts made to alienate them will fail because immigrants are sewn into the fiber of our communities.”