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Statement

Moms Leader: Millions Will Suffer Because the U.S. Senate Failed to Stand Up to President Trump Today

January 24, 2019
Federal Budget, Immigration

Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996

Statement from Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, CEO and executive director of MomsRising, an online and on-the-ground organization of more than one million mothers and their families, on the U.S. Senate’s failure to pass legislation that would re-open the federal government today:

“We are deeply disappointed that the U.S. Senate failed to re-open the federal government this afternoon. The U.S. House of Representatives has done its job by passing bills to end the shutdown, but the Senate let the country down by failing to do the same. Voters will not soon forget this vote, and the pain and suffering it causes families and our economy.

“The Senate had two bills before it: one that would reopen the government while negotiations could take place and another that would continue the parade of harmful anti-immigrant policies President Trump and his Senate allies support. Both failed. As a result, some 800,000 federal workers remain furloughed or working without pay. The longest government shutdown in American history will now continue, thanks to President Trump’s intransigence, his outrageous demand that taxpayers pay for his wasteful, destructive border wall, and the willingness of too many Republican senators to put politics ahead of the well-being of America’s families.

“For weeks, MomsRising has been hearing from moms across the country who are suffering due to the shutdown. Their desperation is growing by the day. With money for essential food, housing and other vital services about to run out, their struggles are going to become even more dire. Families are going to have to make even tougher decisions with every paycheck they miss.

“Americans do not share the racist, anti-immigrant agenda and repugnant values that drive President Trump and his Senate supporters. We reject the lies President Trump tells and do not want billions of our tax dollars to be wasted on his vanity wall. We see how shuttering the government over a manufactured crisis at the border has created an actual, escalating crisis for hard-working families across the country. We know President Trump caused grave harm to DREAMers and TPS (Temporary Protected Status) recipients, and that providing them with a temporary, limited respite is not an acceptable exchange for a wasteful border wall the country neither wants nor needs.

“MomsRising will deliver stories from our members to senators on Tuesday and pass on their demand that Congress refuse to squander our tax dollars by bowing to the President’s blackmail. America’s moms want Congress to reopen the government now, provide all workers with their pay, adopt comprehensive immigration reform, and ensure that every immigrant and every asylum-seeker will be treated with compassion, dignity and respect.”

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MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, decrease discrimination against women and moms, and to build a nation where businesses and families can thrive. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its members are organizing and speaking out to improve public policy and to change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s families, including criminal justice reform, immigration policy reform, and gun safety. MomsRising is working for paid family and medical leave, affordable, high quality childcare and early learning, and for an end to the wage and hiring discrimination which penalizes women — particularly moms and women of color — and so many others. MomsRising advocates for access to healthy food for all kids, health care for all, earned sick days, and breastfeeding rights so that all children can have a healthy start. MomsRising maintains a Spanish language website: MamásConPoder.org. Sign up online at www.MomsRising.org — and follow us on our blog, and on Twitter and Facebook.