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February 3, 2025

Statement on Coordinated State Level Attacks on Immigrant Communities by SiX Senior Director of Legislative Affairs, Ida V. Eskamani

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 3, 2025

Contact: eme@stateinnovation.org

“I’m the proud daughter of working-class immigrants who came to this country with nothing but hope and a relentless drive to build a better future for their kids. Like so many American families, we sacrificed, we worked, we contributed—because that’s what America is supposed to be about: opportunity.

But today, instead of building opportunities for working families, conservative leaders across the country are working hand-in-hand with the Trump administration to scapegoat immigrant families for the crisis caused by unchecked corporate greed. These state-level attacks—whether forcing families to prove citizenship just to access public schools, mandating local law enforcement act as immigration enforcement, or creating new state agencies designed to target immigrant families—are part of a coordinated strategy to divide us and protect the status quo.

The real crisis in this country is one of corporate greed. Immigrants are an essential part of America’s working class and in 2022 undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in taxes. So many of these attacks are targeting immigrant owned small businesses, working parents, elders, and kids– blaming them for the crisis caused by unchecked corporate greed.

Would you rather state legislators make major corporations pay the taxes they owe, or shut down immigrant-owned small businesses? Hold white collar criminals accountable or throw farmworkers in jails? Fund healthcare access or open more for-profit immigrant detention centers? Would you rather see law enforcement build trust with immigrant communities or pull kids out of the classroom to be interrogated? This is the power state lawmakers have, and the choices being made in state capitols across the country.

SIX is organizing state legislators in collaboration with immigrant organizers to build state governments that support working families, not tear them apart. The truth is, all of us—no matter where we were born or how much money we make—deserve the right to safety, dignity, and opportunity."

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