Chuck Schumer Ignites Calls for Ouster as Senate Minority Leader

With the brutal consequences of President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda on full display after U.S. Border Patrol fired tear gas at asylum seekers in Mexico, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sparked fury from progressives and immigrant rights groups on Tuesday by telling reporters that he is perfectly willing to cede ground to the president’s xenophobic policies and offer up $1.6 billion for “border security” funding in upcoming budget talks.

“We are for strong border security,” Schumer declared when asked about Trump’s request for $5 billion in border wall funding.

When asked if he would be willing to go higher than $1.6 billion, Schumer dodged the question, saying he doesn’t want to negotiate through the media.

While Schumer’s office clarified that the $1.6 billion in funding he supports would not be for Trump’s racist border wall but rather for non-concrete “fencing” and other ill-defined “border security” initiatives, critics expressed dismay that the top Senate Democrat is offering any funding for the president’s anti-immigrant agenda, particularly after the GOP was repudiated in the midterm elections.

“Did every mainstream Democrat suddenly decide it’s time to offer a ‘kinder, gentler’ anti-immigration message? And do they think that ‘fences’ are more humane than walls?” asked Richard Eskow, senior advisor for health and economic justice at Social Security Works and host of “The Zero Hour.”

“They must, since so many voted for border fencing in 2006,” Eskow continued. “No fences. No walls. Support all asylum seekers.”

Make no mistake: this is political cowardice. We don’t need a dime for a wall, a fence, a ping-pong net partition, none of it.

We need Democratic leadership who are going to have a goddamn backbone and reject this racist ideology. https://t.co/yH6Gw3vLWP

— Charlotte Clymer