Contact: Joe Shansky, Voces de la Frontera (414) 795-3380 / joe@vdlf.org

In response to yesterday’s firing of Scott Walker’s deputy finance director Taylor Palmisano, Voces executive director Christine Neumann-Ortiz issued the following statement:

“While it’s commendable that the Walker administration did the right thing by not allowing their representatives to get away with publicly disparaging and racist comments, those remarks pale in comparison to the devastating anti-immigrant agenda Scott Walker has assumed since taking office. 

Walker’s 2011-2012 budget stripped Wisconsin’s immigrant students of the right to tuition equality at our state’s public universities.  He has run on a record of promising to veto access to driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants and those who are in the process of adjusting their status, and fought to disenfranchise undocumented pregnant women by denying them critical pre-natal medical care to protect the health of both the mother and child.

He also shamefully codified new forms of legal discrimination by eliminating Food Share benefits for lawful permanent resident immigrants (LPRs).

At the same time as Republicans across the country and in Wisconsin are trying to win back the trust of Latino voters in the wake of the 2012 elections, Scott Walker’s administration continues to have an embarrassing record of staff charged with political corruption, and not just one but two of his aides having been fired in the past four months when their xenophobic, hateful comments were made public.

If Governor Walker wants to win back the trust of Latino voters, he can start by reversing his dismal record and working to make Wisconsin an immigrant-friendly state that values all families, and recognizes the important economic contributions that all immigrants make to our state.”

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