From Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
For years, Bahamians have been able to come to the United States with a valid passport and printout of a clean police record. Yet as hundreds of climate refugees prepared to depart their devastated homes, they heard a heartbreaking announcement: the policy had changed, and if they didn’t have a visa, they needed to get off the boat.
Remember: the cruelty is the point.
These are people who may have lost everything because of something entirely outside of their control, and Trump has the utter lack of empathy to turn them away. That’s a disgusting betrayal of our values, and a fundamental violation of basic human dignity.
As natural disasters grow more powerful, our standing policy cannot be cruelty. After people’s homes are destroyed, their countries are ravaged, and their lives are upended, we cannot leave them to fend for themselves.
We all live on the same planet, which means we’re all in this fight together. As we step up the fight for a Green New Deal to revolutionize our energy grid, reach net zero carbon emissions, and create millions of new Green jobs along the way, we also need to make sure that folks displaced by climate disasters aren’t left out in the cold.
Trump might control our national policy for now, but those days are ticking down. Meanwhile, we have to take collective action to try and alleviate the suffering of thousands of people on the front lines of climate change.
Thank you for making a difference today.
Pa’lante,
Team AOC