Washington: Leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was briefly heckled by an immigrant youth from North Carolina for allegedly receiving campaign funds from private prison corporations. “Our message to Hillary Clinton is simple: immigrant youth do not trust you.
It is time to drop the prison money and stand with our community – you can’t have it both ways,” said Juan Carlos Ramos who heckled Clinton yesterday.
Ramos a member of the United We Dream alleged that Clinton’s campaign has been receiving funds from private prison corporations which profit from the mass incarceration of people of colour in their jails and immigrant detention facilities.
In fact, half of all immigrant detainees are held in privately owned facilities, he said. “We have a hard time believing that she received that big money from private prison companies by promising to end immigrant detention and the school to prison and deportation pipeline,” he said.
“Each dollar of private prison money accepted by the Clinton campaign undermines her pro-immigrant policy promises, and our community will not be fooled,” Ramos said. According to Politico, Clinton did not address the heckler, but Roselyn Sanchez, the actress and singer emceeing the event, said she didn’t know how politicians were able to keep talking while they were being yelled at.
“That was real intense, my Puerto Rican temper would be like ‘excuse me?'” Sanchez said after Clinton finished presenting her award.
Ramos, said US President Barack Obama went into office after many campaign promises and ended up deporting more immigrants than any other president in history and having to fight for my life to win Deferred Action.
“Now Clinton is running for office on her own talking points but clearly has made side deals with those who profit from locking up my community,” he said.
PTI