Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) released the following statement denouncing the potential impact of President Donald Trump’s budget blueprint on the Latino community:
“The Latino community throughout Nevada and the United States faces many unique challenges, and President Trump’s budget will do nothing more than ensure that these challenges become permanent barriers. President Trump’s budget is morally reprehensible for failing to invest in long-term solutions to our country’s most dire challenges. Instead, the President insists on spending billions of dollars on initiatives that harm our Latino communities, such as $4.5 billion on a useless border wall and a destructive deportation force that is tearing families apart.
“President Trump’s budget is a direct threat to low-income Latino families. Under the President’s budget plan, Latino families that rely on vital community development block grants, affordable housing assistance, and rental assistance face radical change to their housing situation. With the Department of Housing and Urban Development facing billions in cuts, public housing authorities throughout the country will no longer be able to serve low-income Latino families to the degree they are entrusted to do so. Programs such as Meals on Wheels, LegalAid, Homes for Vets, heating assistance programs, early childhood education programs, work-study programs, and job training programs also face significant cuts, which would deprive hardworking Latino families of access to these essential, life changing resources. First generation Latinx college students are not exempt from President Trump’s reckless budget proposal. The President fails to understand that investing in education is investing in our country’s future. His plan calls for $193 million cuts to TRIO and GEAR UP, programs that prepare underprivileged students – many of them Latinx – for high school graduation and college. To add to these egregious cuts, the budget asks for $3.9 billion cuts to Pell Grants for college students. Cuts like these will undoubtedly make college a less obtainable dream for many.
“President Trump’s budget disregards the wellbeing of hardworking Latino families. His budget will undo the decades-long progress Latino communities have achieved in this country and shows his lack of touch with reality. I am vehemently opposed to Trump’s meat-ax cuts to the agencies tasked with empowering families and will do everything I can to fight against them.”
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