After New Trump Demand for $25 Billion Wall, Lawmaker Says Cheaper to Build Giant Statue of Middle Finger Aimed at Latin America

Following an immigration deal put forth by the Trump administration late Thursday—one which demands $25 billion for a wall and another $5 billion for increased militarization of the border—progressives said the proposal was “dead on arrival,” nothing but a “racist ransom note,” and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) suggested it would be “far cheaper to erect a 50-foot concrete statue of a middle finger and point it towards Latin America.”

Trump, added Gutierrez, “can’t be trusted to keep his word or maintain position for more than a couple of hours. Every time hardliners inside and outside White House shift his position, we get farther from a deal to serve the will the American people to give Dreamers a way to live here legally.”

Though Trump has said he wants to cut a deal that would protect Dreamers—residents without citizenship who were brought to the U.S. as children—the proposal the White House floated to reporters on Thursday contains a goody bag of hard-line, anti-immigration policies of the kind pushed by Trump advisor Stephen Miller and chief of staff John Kelly. It includes severe cuts to family-based migration policies, termination of the diversity visa program, and more funding for ramped up deportations.

“Let’s call this proposal for what it is:  a white supremacist ransom note.” —Greisa Martinez Rosas, United We Dream

“Let’s call this proposal for what it is:  a white supremacist ransom note,” said Greisa Martinez Rosas, advocacy director for United We Dream, which is calling for passage of a “clean” Dream Act and a deal in which undocumented youth are not used as “bargaining chips” to push an unproductive far-right and xenophobic set of immigration policies.

“Trump and Stephen Miller killed DACA and created the crisis that immigrant youth are facing,” Rosas continued. “They have taken immigrant youth hostage, pitting us against our own parents, Black immigrants and our communities in exchange for our dignity. To Miller and Trump’s white supremacist proposal, immigrant youth say: No.”