Sen. Elizabeth Warren donates salary to Jewish nonprofit helping refugees at the Mexico border amid government shutdown
As the government shutdown enters its second week with Democratic congressional leaders and the president locked in a stalemate over funding a fortified wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, Senator Elizabeth Warren announced that she will be donating her Congressional salary to HIAS Refugees, a global Jewish nonprofit helping asylum seekers at the southern U.S. border.
The Mass. representative says she will be donating her paychecks to the organization because she believes they “make our country stronger in the process.”
Over 7,000 people in Massachusetts have been sent home or are working without pay during the #TrumpShutdown. Until @realDonaldTrump re-opens the government, I'm donating my salary to @HIASrefugees, a nonprofit that helps refugees and makes our country stronger in the process.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) January 1, 2019
The partial government shutdown has impacted nearly 800,000 federal employees across the nation.
Congressional leaders, including House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, are scheduled to visit the White House on Wednesday to discuss the budget impasse over $5 billion the president is asking for to build a border wall. Warren has criticized POTUS saying the shutdown was “completely avoidable” and yet another “temper tantrum over his stupid wall.“
Warren joins Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono, who announced she is donating her congressional pay to food banks throughout Hawaii until the end of the “unfair, completely unnecessary” shutdown.
Warren’s announcement to donate her pay came shortly after she formally launched an exploratory committee to run for president, the first Democrat candidate to step up for the 2020 race. The presidential hopeful said she hopes to “rebuild America’s middle class” and to fight the “echo chamber of fear and hate designed to distract and divide us.”
Every person in America should be able to work hard, play by the same set of rules, & take care of themselves & the people they love. That’s what I’m fighting for, & that’s why I’m launching an exploratory committee for president. I need you with me: https://t.co/BNl2I1m8OX pic.twitter.com/uXXtp94EvY
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) December 31, 2018
“We can rebuild America’s middle class but we have to build it for everyone no matter where you live in America and no matter where your family came from in the world, you deserve a path to opportunity,” Warren said in a video released Monday.
Learn more about Elizabeth Warren’s unlikely path to politics in our MAKERS profile:
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