To: Rep. Yvette Clarke

We—your constituents—are writing to urge additional immediate action with regard to the humanitarian crisis on our border, as well as the immigrant crisis in our district. 

This issue is of immense concern to your constituents. An estimated 164,000 immigrants in Brooklyn are undocumented,. and the likelihood is that a great number of them live in our diverse 9th Congressional District. Nearly 40% of the residents in our district are immigrants. We immigrated from Latin America (40%), Asia (19%), Europe (16%), and Africa (4%). Moreover, over a quarter of Brooklyn’s undocumented immigrants live with a child who was born in the US, highlighting the potential for deportations to separate children from their parents, just as at the border. 

No matter where we were born, we are humans whose hearts are breaking as we watch the inhumane treatment of detainees at Homestead and other concentration camps. Our children watch TV, and they are asking us about the kids who died or were torn from their parents. We see ourselves in these migrants.

We need your leadership to continue to address the crisis. We appreciate your vote against unrestricted funding for the border, your statements on social media condemning the dreadful conditions in the detention camps, especially among children separated from their families, your efforts to travel to the Homestead facility, and your participation in the news conference for the resignation of border agents who expressed the dehumanizing language of prejudice and hate. We would like to support you in these efforts and urge you to do even more.

As your constituents, we would like to call on you to continue your efforts and take even more leadership to resolve this situation. Specifically, we sincerely urge you to:

• Reschedule as soon as possible your visit to Homestead or another concentration camp to bear witness on behalf of your constituents.
• Let us know when your visit is scheduled so that we can amplify your call to #CloseTheCamps and end Trump's zero tolerance immigration policy. 
• Report to our diverse district in several town hall meetings to (a) help us better understand the situation and what we can do as citizens to ameliorate the conditions, and (b) to let your immigrant constituents know that their safety is a priority for you and all of us who live in CD9.
• Push the House Homeland Security Committee on which you sit to hold hearings on conditions at the camps and exercise strict oversight of the camps and the Border Patrol to rein in their worst abuses.
• Act with your colleagues to defund the hate by reducing funding to the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection back to its Obama-era levels.
  
  

The United States is strongest when it projects and promotes its values to the rest of the world. The rule of law is intrinsic to our constitutional nature and the foundation upon which international peace is maintained. These detentions without due process, these horrible conditions, are an affront to American values. They weaken us. Our morality and strategic interests demand an immediate resolution.  We jeopardize our own humanity when we allow this to happen.  

Respectfully,

NYSD17 for Progress

Co-Sponsors:
Indivisible BK
Ditmas Civic
PAYS (Pakistani American Youth Society)
Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats
Brooklyn ReSisters