CONYERS: Heartless Trump Budget Hurts Nation's Most Vulnerable And Undermines Access To Justice

Washington, D.C. – House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), today released the following statement on President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2018 budget:

Dean of the U.S, House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

“There is no doubt that President Trump’s budget starves many essential government programs across the board.  These proposed cuts threaten to undermine the Justice Department’s critical public safety efforts and jeopardize essential community-based justice programs,” said Conyers. 

Guts Legal Services Program for America’s Most Vulnerable:

Conyers continued, “The Trump Budget effectively eliminates the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), a program that for more than 40 years, with bipartisan support, has provided civil legal representation of hundreds of thousands of Americans in every county in every state and the territories.  By cutting all LSC funding, the Trump Budget would harm America's most vulnerable: seniors victimized by consumer fraud scams, families facing foreclosure and eviction, women trying to escape domestic abuse, and veterans seeking promised benefits.  Last year alone, LSC grantees helped nearly 100,000 veterans and their family members nationwide.  Rather than address the enormous gap between the number of people who need legal services and the resources currently available to LSC to meet their needs, the Trump budget instead guts this critical program, which is particularly needed in rural communities where 20% of the Nation’s population resides in rural areas, but only 2% of lawyers serve these communities.”

Strips Funding from National Instant Criminal Background Check Improvement Program:

“After the Virginia Tech mass shooting in 2007, Congress passed the NICS Improvement Amendments Act, a bipartisan measure to require and fund the addition of qualifying mental health information into the background check system,” said Conyers.  “The Trump budget reduces funding for this effort. We must maintain our commitment to making sure this system is as comprehensive as possible to reduce the chances that guns are sold in error to people who are legally prohibited from possessing them.”

Harms Crime Prevention Efforts:

Conyers continued, “The Trump budget severely underfunds programs that help the formerly incarcerated get back on their feet. At a time when we must focus our efforts on programs that actually work to reduce crime, we must not back away from funding critical programs under the Second Chance Act that help prisoners successfully transition back to their communities and thereby reduce recidivism.” 

Americans Foot the Bill for Trump’s Border Wall:

“This budget funds a militarized police force which has the potential to expose Americans to greater racial profiling and additional interrogations at the border. With this budget, Americans will foot the bill for Trump’s un-American border wall,” Conyers concluded.

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