By Francisco Moya
An Open Letter to President Trump:
If you want to strip sanctuary cities of funding to force us into complying with your vindictive anti-immigrant executive actions, go ahead; that won’t make us budge. Our principles cannot be bought and besides you could use the money seeing as Mexico won’t be paying for this wall you want to build. The American taxpayers will.
And when you build that wall, know that we’ll build a taller one between our local law enforcement and the federal authorities charged with enforcing your misguided deportation agenda. We’ll put that wall around our agencies so you could never pry the sensitive information immigrants entrusted us to keep. We will never be an accomplice to your egregious executive orders that tarnish the dignity and image of our country.
New York will stand behind the hundreds of thousands of families that rightfully call this state home. Diversity is in ingrained in the streets immigrants built, inscribed in our harbor and woven into the very fabric of every community living here.
With more languages and ethnicities than anywhere else in the United States, my district may be the most susceptible to your policies, but the residents are also the most eager to stand as a united front. They won’t fall for your attempts to turn communities of color and low-income against each other by holding federal money over their head. You’ve never known their struggles; you’ve never had to make the hard choices they have had to make. You’re incapable of understanding their resilience to adversity, and so you have severely underestimated your sacrificial scapegoat.
You may have bullied your way into our oval office, but just because your tower sits in our skyline, the divisive values and prejudices you champion will never define us.
Francisco Moya
Assemblyman
Jackson Heights
