Target: Marco Rubio, U.S. Secretary of State
Goal: Halt planned review of 55 million American visa holders.
The targeting of immigrants is coming with a hefty price tag in the United States. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had its budget increased to nearly 30 billion dollars, making it one of the most expensive militaries on the planet. The Secretary of Homeland Security, at the suggestion of the president, announced a sure-to-be-expensive, logically and logistically infeasible plan to paint the entire border wall black in order to “warm up” the wall and deter climbers (except at night). Now comes word that the administration plans to reevaluate the legal status of all 55 million visa holders in the country.
This latest impractical maneuver will add to the cost burden of a nation already under crippling debt. Moreover, it threatens to undermine a longstanding system that has made this nation a compelling place to visit, to study, and to live for millions of people and for generations. Anecdotal tales have already emerged in abundance of visa holders being unceremoniously stripped of their ability to remain in the country for infractions as minor as speeding tickets. As a consequence, students have had their educational pursuits upended, workers have had their livelihoods destroyed, and visitors from around the world have been made to feel unwelcome in the “Land of the Free.” In a further audacious move, the State Department recently suspended visas entirely for truck drivers because these workers were somehow “endangering American lives” or did not speak English well enough (despite the United States having no official language).
Sign the petition below to demand America’s leaders remember that the United States is a nation of immigrants.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Secretary Rubio,
Isolationism has never ended well for the United States. The depths to which this department and this administration have sunk to make legally vetted foreign students, workers, and visitors feel excluded and unwanted will end even worse. Re-vetting tens of millions of visa holders who have already gone through a rigorous process is a costly, time-consuming, and ultimately unreachable expenditure that seems like a desperate attempt to meet a deportation quota. In the process, you are upending lives and demeaning the values that have kept the country strong for centuries.
The targeting of truck drivers for posing some vague “danger” is just one example. If the administration is so concerned with targeting foreign workers who provide an immeasurable economic boost, then why not hold the businesses and individuals who employ these workers to account? You are doing irreparable harm to this nation’s bottom line and, more importantly, to the American Dream itself. Stop these destructive campaigns before you likewise light a torch to the Department of State’s legacy as ambassador to the world.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Ayman Bardi
