Published On: Tue, Jun 18th, 2019

Trump’s Attacks on Immigrants Won’t Win Florida

Immigrant communities in Florida respond to Trump’s Florida campaign launch by vowing to vote in greater numbers than ever

Orlando, Florida – As Donald Trump formally launched his reelection campaign in Orlando, local residents lined up to protest his divisive attacks. The speech took place just one week after the three year anniversary of Pulse, which hit the Latinx LGBTQ community particularly hard. As he spoke, thousands rallied outside at the “Win With Love” protest, featuring immigrants, refugees and LGBTQ individuals affected by Trump’s policies. Every 1 in 5 Florida residents is an immigrant, with more than 2 million voters in the state. In the face of Trump’s hateful rhetoric and his vow to begin mass arrests of immigrants across the country, Florida’s immigrant voters vow to turn out in force in 2020 to make sure he doesn’t win in our state.

The following statement is from Isabel Vinent, Interim Executive Director of FLIC Votes:

“Trump does not respect Latinx and other non white immigrants that have made Florida the sunshine State. He openly supports a white supremacist agenda that is destroying our families, tearing children away from their parents and putting them in inhumane ​detention camps. While holding Dreamers and TPS recipients hostage to institute his brutal, xenophobic, anti-immigrant agenda, he’s vowing to end decades-long policies that keep families together and launch a new massive wave of deportations. He’s intentionally neglected Puerto Ricans devastated by ​Hurrican​e​ Maria. While abusing immigrants to move his white supremacist base, he is dismantling historically important regulations that privilege only the 1% and corporate America. Florida won’t forget his brutal treatment of our families. We are showing up to the polls in 2020 in unprecedented numbers and we will do everything we can to stop him.”

 

The following statement is from Basma Alawee, a Florida refugee organizer:

“Globally, we have 25.4 million refugees, the largest number in recorded history. But at our time of greatest need, Trump has slashed refugee admissions to just 30,000, a historic low compared to the yearly US average of 95,000. For our Muslim families, it gets even worse. Trump is outright banning us. My dear friend Selwah and her husband are Syrian refugees who came to the US three years ago. But because of the Muslim ban, they are being forced apart from their oldest daughter and son. Her family is being torn apart, like so many others.”

 

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Florida Immigrant Coalition Votes seeks to expand democracy by shaping an active and conscious electorate which reflects the diversity of Florida, while engaging those who can’t yet vote.

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