The San Francisco Bay Area office of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA), today condemns President Trump’s late-night tweet announcing that he intends to sign an executive order to “temporarily suspend immigration into the United States.”
TAKE ACTION: Urge Congress to Fight Trump’s New Plant to Halt Immigration Into U.S.
In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:
“President Trump’s threat to ban anyone from immigrating to the United States represents merely his latest attempt to transform anti-immigrant bigotry into xenophobic government policy.
“Trump’s ill-defined, insidious and irrational tweet insults the thousands of immigrants who are risking their lives in the fight against COVID-19 as health care, pharmacy, manufacturing, transportation, and grocery workers, among other critical roles.
“Banning these and other immigrants from our nation amid the COVID-19 pandemic not only undermines our values but would result in fewer essential workers and makes us less safe.
“Xenophobia cannot stop the spread of the COVID-19, nor can Trump’s increasingly desperate and unhinged statements distract the American people from his failure to manage this pandemic.
“We condemn President Trump in the strongest terms for using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to advance his longstanding anti-immigrant agenda.”
Awad noted 29 percent of U.S. physicians and 23 percent of store pharmacists are foreign born.
SEE: Migration Policy Institute’s Immigrant Workers: Vital to the U.S. COVID-19 Response, Disproportionately Vulnerable
Earlier this month, the Department of State announced that, despite a general suspension of visa processing, the agency would continue to process visas for medical workers, “particularly those working to treat or mitigate the effects of COVID-19.”
SEE: Department of State Update on Visas for Medical Professionals
