NEW YORK, CMC – Caribbean American Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke is urging Caribbean nationals not to hesitate in obtaining US citizenship, so they can vote in elections here.
“If you are living here for 55 years, and you’re not a (US) citizen, I encourage you to get US citizenship,” said Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants told the 35th Annual Gala Awards Ceremony of the Brooklyn, New York-based group, Vincentian-American Independent National Charities, Inc. (VINCI).
Clarke, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, preceded her remarks by telling a story of an immigrant who has been living in the US for 55 years and now faces deportation.
“As citizens, you get to vote for the leader of the free world. So, when your diplomats go to the White House, they don’t have to do ‘hat-in-hand.’
“We have a moral, ethical obligation to vote. In times like these, we have to vote. You have to unleash your power, because 45 (the 45th president of the US, Donald J. Trump) is not playing games. He’s doing what he said he would do.
“Let us not underestimate our power. Let us go out and (vote). Let us make noise. Let us go out and vote November 6,’ she said in reference to the mid-term elections, where Democrats are hoping to win control of the Senate and the Congress.
Since Trump was inaugurated in January 20, 2017, an increasing number of Caribbean and other immigrants have been deported.
Last month, the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agency reported that the number of families arrested for illegally entering the US increased 38 percent in August.
Immigration advocacy groups have strongly criticized Trump, as illegal and a violation the US Constitution, for declaring that undocumented immigrants entering the US should be immediately deported without due process.
“We cannot allow all of these people to invade our country,” Trump wrote on Twitter in June. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no judges or court cases, bring them back from where they came”. – CMC
