Vermont Democrat Congresswoman Becca Balint, the state’s first female and openly gay member of Congress, slammed the Trump administration’s actions toward immigrants while declaring that if immigration is decreased, “We’re not gonna have anybody around to wipe our a**es.”
Speaking at a town hall in Newport, Vermont, Balint launched into a diatribe in which she posited that there weren’t enough people in America “to fill the jobs we have right now.”
“We all know our AG system in Vermont would collapse without migrant labor; that’s just a reality. That’s the reality,” she began. “We know our economy is completely bound up in immigration and migrant labor, and of course, we have to come to a place in Congress where it is no longer a political issue but we see it as an existential issue for the country. If we don’t have avenues for people to come here legally to work or to build a home here — I’m gonna be really crude right now, we’re not gonna have anybody around to wipe our a**es, because we don’t have enough people in our country now to fill the jobs that we have right now.”
“But we have to make sure those folks are getting a decent wage and making sure that their rights are protected,” she continued, then offering a bone to those who want secure borders, saying, “And we also have to make sure that we have an adult conversation in Congress about the give and take and how this works, because it is not a xenophobic or racist thing for people to say they want to know our borders are secure. That alone is not.”
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Then she segued to attacking the Trump administration: “What falls apart is how policies are enacted, and right now, we have a fair amount of lawlessness that is happening among ICE and Homeland Security that was not anything, I think, that most voters wanted. What they wanted was to know there was a secure border, that there would be pathways to citizenship, and rules would be the same for everybody. The problem is right now people are following the rules, and every step of the way and they are still being carted off and kidnapped and not being allowed to have access to their attorneys.”
Balint told Fox News of President Trump: “He has made immigrants, regardless of status, feel unsafe and targeted all around the country. As Vermonters, we’re so proud that we are seen as a safe place to land. I’m unwavering in my position that immigrants and refugees are welcome in Vermont and that every worker in every job deserves dignity and fair wages — from doctors and scientists to carpenters and farmworkers. … I’ve relentlessly condemned the Trump administration’s cruel practices targeting and separating immigrant families, and I will continue to stand up for the rights of every person in this country.”
