National Asian American Action Fund and Tri-State AAAF of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana Endorse Former Vice President Joe Biden
National Asian American Action Fund and Tri-State AAAF of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana Endorse Former Vice President Joe Biden
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aaa-fund.org
The Asian American Action Fund (AAAF) proudly endorses Vice President Joe Biden for President. Given the grave moment America is in, we know that leadership requires swift, detailed, and decisive action.
Biden has spoken out against xenophobia, and his Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) plan includes the Department of Justice fully prosecuting and prioritizing hate crimes – the same hate crimes that have spiked against AAPIs since COVID-19 pandemic started. He specifically states that “Acts of racism and xenophobia against the Asian American and Pacific Islander community must not be tolerated.”
The choice couldn’t be clearer. Trump just announced an office of denaturalizing citizens. Biden, in contrast, voted for the 2006-2007 comprehensive immigration reform bill, which was the best chance we had to date to pass immigration reform. As president, Biden has promised to immediately begin working on comprehensive immigration reform, preserve family reunification, reinstate DACA, rescind the Muslim ban, and end family separations. He has substantial plans on overcoming language barriers and funding entrepreneurs of color.
Biden’s detailed and thorough COVID-19 plan is a good example of his policy positions. He would inject immediate funding to local, state, and federal governments, support telemedicine to maximize thinly-stretched healthcare resources, and restore CDC funding while creating global health taskforces. Biden calls for free vaccines, paid sick leave, and overtime for healthcare workers. Importantly, he calls for reversing Trump’s onerous public charge rule which has made immigrant families fearful of seeking healthcare. This plan would save lives and prevent our hospitals from being overwhelmed.
We believe in Joe Biden’s message of unity, and his track record of delivering on legislation including the groundbreaking Violence Against Women Act, Affordable Care Act, Cancer Moonshot, Brady Background Checks law, and the ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines. We see his campaign welcoming supporters from all campaigns including those of the two first AAPI presidential candidates Sen. Kamala Harris and Andrew Yang, as well as Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, and Beto O’Rourke. He is endorsing policies from Senator Elizabeth Warren (her bankruptcy plan) and Senator Bernie Sanders (free college tuition for families making less than $125,000.) We need a leader who can win, learn, grow, and bring our country together.
We also want to acknowledge Bernie Sanders’s efforts to stretch the national policy debate in healthcare, tuition assistance and other areas, as well as his campaign’s extraordinary efforts to reach AAPI voters and highlight AAPI stories and staff. Their volunteers and staff have reached out to communities in 15 API languages and continually made efforts to elevate immigrant and refugee leadership.
Joe Biden has promised to elevate and increase AAPI representation in government, and will appoint AAPIs to the highest level of government. The Obama-Biden administration appointed 3 Cabinet Secretaries (VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu) and more AAPI judges than all previous administrations combined.
Our board is unified on the urgency to defeat Donald Trump this November. Our lives and the lives of our community depend upon it.
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Founded in 1999, the Asian American Action Fund (www.aaafund.org) is a Democratic Asian American Pacific Islander political action committee that has successfully supported over 200 candidates for office. The organization’s goal is to increase the voice of Asian American Pacific Islander voices in local, state, and federal office and address AAPI under-representation by mobilizing campaign volunteers, resources, and technical assistance.
Tri-State Asian American Action Fund is a chapter of AAAF based in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky that endorses and supports Democratic candidates who promote and defend the rights of all Americans. The chapter works to encourage and educate Asian Americans in the Midwest to join the political process, to make their voices heard, and to ensure their needs are met.
Unless clearly identified as statements of the AAA-Fund, the views, opinions, analyses, and assumptions expressed in each blog or clearinghouse post are those of the author or contributor alone, and not those of the AAA-Fund.
