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A Latino rights group is planning to build its own wall around presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, next Wednesday.
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The group called Mijente, started a fundraising campaign, “Wall off Trump,” to build a 15,000-foot colorful wall made of fabric to encircle the area of the convention.
One of Trump’s key campaign proposals has been to build a huge wall between the border with Mexico and the U.S. to stop Mexicans from entering the country. That has inspired anti-Trump activists.
“In polarized times we need to be building more bridges between us and less walls that divide us ... But if Trump is set on building a wall. We’re going to give it to him. But we’ll be walling off his hate. We won’t go quietly as he campaigns to put us back in the closet, back across the border, or to the back of the bus,” said Marisa Franco, director of Mijente.
Other organizations, such as the Ruckus Society, Iraq Veterans Against the War, the Other 98% and the Working Families Party plan to take part in the wall-building to protest against Trump’s anti-immigration platform.
Trump has previously insisted that the Mexican government would pay for the wall, claiming that Mexicans coming into the U.S. weaken the economy and commit crimes, despite the fact that undocumented immigrants are statistically more likely to obey the law than U.S. citizens.
“His campaign slogan, ‘Make America Great Again,’ is code to take our country back to a past of racial segregation. We’re not afraid of the future of this country. Instead, our wall will celebrate the beautiful potential our people hold,” reads Mijente's fundraising page. Activists are hoping to raise US$15,000 to build the wall and are currently two-thirds of the way there.
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