Impeached president Donald Trump’s Thursday visit to Pennsylvania was met by car “caravan” led by immigrant rights advocates protesting the administration’s pandemic response failure and exclusion of many immigrant families from vital federal relief. Some of the estimated 200 cars displayed “mobile headstones,” organizer Make the Road Action in Pennsylvania said.
“Thousands of my constituents are sick, unemployed or dead. I don’t want a photo op, Mr. President. I want a plan,” state Rep. Mike Schlossberg said in a statement received by Daily Kos. “How are we going to give out PPE? How are we going to do mass testing? How are we going to protect front line workers or my most vulnerable constituents?”
Make the Road Action in Pennsylvania said in the statement that ”Although 69 percent of all immigrant workers and 74 percent of undocumented workers are essential workers, immigrants were excluded from the trillions in stimulus benefits passed by Congress including $1,200 payments and COVID-19 testing and treatment.”
Allentown, where the impeached president was headed for what was really a political rally amid a pandemic that has already infected over a million people in the U.S., has been particularly hard-hit, the group said. “Allentown, whose population is 52% Latino, has a per capita infection rate nearly 4.5 times higher than the rest of Pennsylvania. At least 3,943 Pennsylvanians have died from Coronavirus so far.”
In a tweet, the organization said, “Now he has the audacity to come to our state and ask for our votes. Not on our watch.”
While the latest pandemic response package introduced by House Democrats takes some important steps to protect these families (and should still go much further), the administration has thrown cold water on it precisely for those reasons. White House Press Sec. “Kayleigh McEnany says President Trump has no ‘immediate plans’ to pursue a phase four coronavirus bill,” Yamiche Alcindor tweeted. “She said the $3 trillion House bill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is supporting is a ‘nonstarter,’ is ‘quite odd’ and is a ‘liberal wish list.’”
If $25 billion in emergency funds for the Post Office, $1 trillion in aid to state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and ensuring many more families and children at risk of hunger and homelessness are included in federal relief is “a liberal wish list,” then it’s a “liberal wish list” we should be proud to wear.
“Those of us who are immigrants, Black and brown, and working class have been hit hardest by the virus,” Make the Road Action in Pennsylvania member Jarrett Risper said in the statement. “Many of us are unemployed or furloughed, and while this crisis continues, we’re expected to pay rent, utilities, buy food and just try to stay alive. The struggle is even worse for immigrants and undocumented people, who are excluded from getting any of the stimulus benefits. Trump is only here because he wants to have good press ahead of the election, but taking pictures in a warehouse won’t help us.”
“Instead of using his power to give Pennsylvanians the resources we need to survive this pandemic, Trump is exploiting our pain and our state for his campaign,” Make the Road Action in Pennsylvania state director Maegan Llerena said in the statement. “We may be a battleground state for the 2020 election, but right now our state is a battleground for our lives. We are the immigrant families who pay taxes and work on the frontlines, and we are the people who will not get a cent of stimulus benefits, even though we are putting our lives at risk fighting the virus.”