Josh Riley Fails To Defend Ithaca & Binghamton While Students Are Deported
It’s been 2 days since Donald Trump declared that he will not obey a unanimous order from the United States Supreme Court to free an innocent man from a concentration camp in El Salvador and return him the United States. The imprisoned man has never been charged with a crime either in El Salvador or the United States. He has been a legal resident of the United States.
It’s been 2 days since Donald Trump declared in front of live cameras that he will start sending American citizens down to concentration camps in El Salvador. Trump told bitcoin dictator Nayib Bukele to build five more prisons like the giant one he already has, in order to hold all the American citizens Trump will deport. Just one of these prisons holds 40,000 people.
We Are Higher Ed is now reporting that 18 law-abiding foreign students from Cornell University, and 5 from Binghamton University have had their student visas revoked, forcing them to leave the United States immediately, or risk being sent to a secret prison themselves. The same thing is happening across the United States.
These attacks on universities in New York’s 19th congressional district are devastating the local economy, because families overseas are choosing not to send their children to go to school in our country anymore, out of reasonable fear of fascist persecution. Without foreign students paying the full rate for tuition, room and board, the cost of a university education for American students is set to skyrocket, while spending in our communities by foreign students is depriving local businesses of needed income.
What’s more, while our country teeters on the edge of recession, Donald Trump has withheld over a billion dollars in funding for scientific research from Cornell University alone, while also attacking Ithaca College and the Ithaca City School District, pressuring those schools to begin programs of racial and gender discrimination.
In response to all of this, Congressman Josh Riley has said nothing.
Congressman Josh Riley has done nothing to defend Ithaca and Binghamton from these attacks.
Congressman Josh Riley has chosen to be silent and inactive while Donald Trump makes himself a dictator.
This afternoon at 4:30, people from Ithaca will gather in protest against the growing fascism of Donald Trump.
On Saturday at 10:00 AM in Dewitt Park in Ithaca, and at 2 PM at the Broome County Courthouse in Binghamton, people will assemble as part of a nationwide protest against fascism.
Josh Riley will not be at any of these protests.
Congress is in recess this week, and Josh Riley is supposed to be available to meet with constituents. Nonetheless, Josh Riley has yet to hold even one genuine, in-person town hall meeting with his constituents.
When the people of New York’s 19th congressional district need him to show leadership and defend them from the fascism of Donald Trump, Josh Riley doesn’t show up.
