This year’s Benefit for Change comes at a critical time. Two weeks ago, the administration cut the refugee admissions ceiling for 2020 to a historic low of 18,000–the lowest it has ever been in U.S. History. (For nearly four decades, the average number of refugees admitted to the United States each year has been 95,000). Additionally, the U.S. government issued an executive order allowing states and local governments to deny entry to refugees already approved for travel from entering those states. What’s even worse, earlier this month, the Supreme Court issued an unprecedented decision allowing the Trump administration to implement its asylum ban while legislation continues to make its way through the judicial system. This decision allows the government to deny protection to Central American and other families escaping violence and persecution who arrive at our border through Mexico.
These discriminatory decisions violate the basic human rights of thousands of refugees and asylum-seekers and will have a devastating impact on so many families–who, because of lines drawn in the sand to separate us from our neighbors–are having their basic human rights taken away from them.
But we are not defined by borders.
It is time for us to come together, take a stand together and demonstrate together that the administration cannot erase our history as a nation of immigrants. It cannot silence the many different voices that have been the fabric of this nation for hundreds of years. Those voices are our past, our present, and the future of a welcoming America. On November 7, will you join us to take a stand and celebrate belonging beyond borders? Purchase your ticket here.