C’bean American legislator critical of Trump’s plan to deport illegal immigrants
NEW YORK, United States (CMC) — Caribbean American Congresswoman Yvette D Clarke has strongly criticised United States President Donald T Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented Caribbean and other immigrants.
“We have a Bigot-in-Chief who is overstepping his authority in his role as president, pushing to deport immigrants from America,” Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
“It’s clear that he has one objective: to whitewash America. But that’s not who America is; we are a nation built by immigrants. I will continue to push back on Trump as he tries to instill fear in and bully our immigrant neighbours, friends and family.”
Clarke, the representative for the predominantly Caribbean 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York, said as a second-generation Jamaican American, “I know how immigrants contribute to our local and national economies by working jobs that pay taxes while also adding to the cultural fabric of our communities, making America the country we know and love today”.
Clarke said her legislation, the Dream and Promise Act, which recently passed the US House of Representatives, will provide 2.5 million beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), among others, a pathway to citizenship and the opportunity for legal residency.
“We must urge our colleagues in the Senate to also pass this historic legislation,” she said.
Late Monday night Trump tweeted that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency will next week “begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States.
“They will be removed as fast as they come in,” he tweeted.
But a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told ABC TV News that the deportations described by Trump are not imminent.
Separately, however, a Trump administration official said that enforcing final deportation orders “is a top priority”.
Clarke, other elected officials and immigration advocates, say since taking office, Trump has deported more immigrants than any other president in recent American history.
