Immigrants are going hungry so Trump won't deport them
Source: The Washington Post
By Caitlin Dewey March 16 at 10:30 AM
Luisa Fortin sometimes sits up at night, wondering what her clients are eating. She is the SNAP Outreach Coordinator for the Chattanooga Food Bank but lately she has done less outreaching.
Her families, working immigrants in northwest Georgia, are spooked by the political climate, Fortin said. Increasingly, shes being asked to explain how food stamps may impact immigration status, if not to outright cancel family food benefits.
Since mid-January, five of Fortins families have withdrawn from the SNAP program. One, the single mother of three citizen daughters, had fled to Georgia to escape an abusive husband. Another, two green-card holders with four young children, were thinking of taking on third jobs to compensate for the lost benefits. These families represent a small fraction of Fortin's caseload she estimates she has signed 200 immigrant families up for SNAP over the past six months but based on the calls she gets from other clients, she fears more cancellations are imminent.
I get calls from concerned parents all the time: should I take my kids out of the program? Fortin said. Theyre risking hunger out of fear
and my heart just breaks for them. Chattanooga is not an outlier here, either.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/16/immigrants-are-now-canceling-their-food-stamps-for-fear-that-trump-will-deport-them/?utm_term=.83d7ebbbdcd1&wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1
Judi Lynn
(160,527 posts)byronius
(7,394 posts)This kind of pain leaks into everything, darkens everything -- we're all connected.
DK504
(3,847 posts)When I see hispanics in a Walmart I see them buying big bags of bean rice and the cheapest meat in the aisles. No veggies, that's a luxury they can't afford.
Disgusting.
TomCADem
(17,387 posts)...stalking immigrants at courthouses and schools all in the name of safety? More like cruelty and racism.
Solly Mack
(90,764 posts)The brutality is so unnecessary that I can only believe it is intentional. That they are taking pleasure in the harming of others.
There is no other explanation.