Gun violence has ripped apart the peace and comity of three American communities this week: Gilroy, CA; El Paso, TX; and Dayton, OH. We extend our support and encouragement to all who mourn, and we especially recognize that among them may be terrified undocumented families who desperately need our protection.
The white nationalism infecting the White House is a deadly epidemic that spreads and kills people without regard to their race, color or national origin.
We cannot let the occupant of the White House continue to fan the flames of this violence. As a nation of people of conscience, we must come together to fight this pernicious hatred that consumes and harms all of us, regardless of country of origin or political ideology. Even when Donald Trump is out of office, the white nationalism he has unleashed will likely persist and require action to stop it.
The three mass shootings this past week, are the direct result of the racist words and white nationalist ideology of President Trump, who continues to inflame the xenophobia nurtured by his base.
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell buys into the same rhetoric and is as much to blame for the carnage thanks to his effective blocking of common-sense gun reform laws. More than 100 domestic terrorism-related cases under FBI investigation since October bear witness to McConnell’s inaction.
Immigrants and other vulnerable communities are under attack. We call on elected officials at every level to uphold their oaths of office and protect their entire communities, including and especially those who are under attack by this administration.
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), a California immigrant rights advocacy organization, demands that local, state and national elected officials protect vulnerable communities in the face of presidential rhetoric and Senate inaction that is yielding predictable, deadly results from three mass shootings this week in California, Texas and Ohio.
Even as President Trump and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell ignore the violence in hopes of normalizing these attacks, we demand that people of conscience step up to name this violence as what it is: home-grown terrorism resulting in the deaths of innocent people with and without legal status.