Washington, D.C. – Cristóbal J. Alex, President of the Latino Victory Project, issued the following statement after the confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general:
“Republicans were desperate to jam through Donald Trump’s extremist, rubber-stamp pick to be attorney general. Since being rejected by the Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee in the eighties, Sessions has doubled-down on his advocacy for legislation that disproportionately targets communities of color, infringing on our most fundamental rights like access to the ballot box. Separating Sessions’ rhetoric from his record is nothing more than a malicious fantasy Republicans continue to push.
“It’s clear that Coretta Scott King’s testimony continues to haunt Republicans. But her words could not ring truer than they do today: “We still have a long way to go before we can say that minorities no longer need to be concerned about discrimination at the polls. Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asian Americans are grossly underrepresented at every level of government in America.”
“Senate Republicans need to know that by confirming Jeff Sessions as the next Attorney General of the United States, they are putting our civil rights in danger and making America unsafe for communities of color. Jeff Sessions supports mass deportation, a Muslim registry, and he would roll back progress on LGBTQ and voting rights. As we’ve seen throughout his career, his anti-immigrant and racist convictions will continue to guide his judgment and make him unable to protect all Americans equally. We have no reason to believe that he will serve as an independent attorney general. He is simply not fit to serve.
“Latino Victory will persist every step of the way to ensure that our communities’ voices are not oppressed. We will not be silenced, and we will push back against injustice whenever and wherever we encounter it.”
