NEW YORK, CMC – Caribbean-American Democratic Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke has strongly condemned United States President Donald Trump for unleashing what she described as unprecedented “terror, confusion and chaos across this nation.”
Speaking at a town hall meeting here on Monday night, Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, said that, in just 160 days in office, Trump’s assault has been “at a level unlike any before in our nation’s history.”
The chair of the Congressional Black Caucus stated that Trump has achieved this by implementing the Conservative Project 2025 manifesto.
She said the administration had alienated the “functionality of Congress by enforcing unconstitutional executive orders, hiring billionaires and loyalists to serve as secretaries over the nation’s top federal agencies “while giving them government contracts under the table.”
She stated that they were unlawfully eliminating and dismantling federal agencies and implementing mass firings of the federal workforce without providing objective justification for their actions.
Clarke, the ranking member of the US House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, also said Trump has instituted “an unconstitutional mass deportation scheme” by “unleashing a nation-wide dragnet against immigrants, with no due process, revoking temporary protections from migrants from primarily Black and Brown countries and implementing ‘racist travel bans’ – impacting Haiti and Cuba, several nations from the Continent of Africa, including the Republic of Congo, and just announced Nigeria, Ghana, among several other countries.”
Clarke was joined in the first of what she said will be a series of town halls by immigration attorney James Lopez, attorney Diego Fernandez-Pages, and Maya Wiley, president and chief executive officer at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
The Congresswoman said that the “One Big Ugly Bill” – that has passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives by one vote and is now in the Republican-Controlled US Senate – if passed, “would decimate programs such as Medicaid, SNAP, and end the provision of critical aid support domestically and internationally.”
She said, “All of which is to maintain trillions in tax cuts to billionaires in perpetuity and to widen the economic wealth gap for this and future generations to come.”
Under Trump, she said the US is “experiencing the unlawful implementation of tariffs imposed on our foreign allies and neighbors, destroying the economy, crashing the stock market, and escalating costs on everyday essentials for American families, devastating the working and middle class, and making it hard for small businesses to stay afloat.”
Clarke said the Trump administration has also eliminated Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) initiatives within federal agencies and the Armed Forces and “threatens schools’ systems, colleges, universities and corporations for anything they perceive as DEI.
“The attack on DEI is an attack on progress and American values in action. And the list goes on.”
Clarke said these policies and “tax scams were never meant to help the American people but were implemented to line the pockets of the rich with tax breaks and to take from the less fortunate, all under the guise of waste, fraud, and abuse.
“And they don’t want you or anyone else to know what they’re doing because House Republicans pushed the passage of Trump’s ‘Big Ugly’ bill in the dead of night to deter you from watching their every move,” she added.
The legislator warned that “the so-called ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ will strip away life-saving healthcare for 17.3 million Americans.
In her Brooklyn district, which is overwhelmingly Caribbean, Clarke said this amounts to over 65,000 people over the age of 65; over 24,000 disabled children and adults; over 146,000 young adults; over 85,000 parents and caretakers; over 149,000 children; and over 11,000 pregnant women.
“But while you were sleeping, my Democratic colleagues and I were up and awake, fighting and calling this regime out for what it truly is: racist and authoritarian. And that’s why tonight I’m here to tell you directly how I’m fighting back and leading the resistance.
“I have held several press conferences to educate and inform you of the imminent danger posed by the Trump administration; I have led numerous letters to the administration demanding the redesignation and extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti and other countries,” she added.
“I am in the fight for the basic health care rights for you, which includes advocating for more funding on both the federal and state levels for SUNY Downstate (Hospital in Brooklyn) so that our hospitals and the health of the community aren’t further put in jeopardy; and ensuring the diversity of our district is fully represented in Congress…”
Clarke said House Democrats are working diligently “to hold the Trump administration accountable by educating, litigating, legislating and communicating the disastrous policies and executive orders his administration has already enacted, as well as all those lying in wait.”
She said Democrats were also educating the public on the “unconstitutional actions this administration wants to impose, and filing lawsuits against their illegal actions and the infringement of your rights in the courts.
“And make no mistake, our district is in the crosshairs of this administration’s anarchy,” Clarke told attendees, adding, “New York has a target on its back by this administration, which is implementing cruel and inhumane policies on our neighbor.”
Wiley said that the Trump administration is “undermining public education,” adding that “the end game is to end public education.
“The question is, are you being loud?” she asked. “I can’t tell you how important this is to get in the press.
Lopez urged nationals to continue voicing disapproval of Trump’s policies, while Fernandez-Pages said: “Our Constitution applies no matter where we are.”
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