3 days ago
Townhall with more than 100 attendees criticizes Senator Capito and Representative Moore
MORGANTOWN, (WBOY) — The Mountaineers Indivisible Citizen Action (MICA) held a town hall on Saturday where concerned citizens aired their grievances with the representation from Senator Shelley Moore Capito and Representative Riley Moore.
MICA said of the event on Facebook that they invited Senator Capito and Representative Moore and described the event as a 'Town Hall with (or without) Our Representatives'. Senator Capito and Representative Moore were not at the event. Instead, over 100 people filed into First Presbyterian Church in Morgantown to present their questions, concerns, and anger at two pictures of the Senator and Representative on stage.
The grievances of the attendees of the town hall included cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, the executive branch overstepping its power, the abuse of the rights of immigrants and what attendees generally saw as the failure of Senator Capito and Representative Moore to speak out against these actions.
A number of speakers presented their views on the Trump Administration's actions over the last couple of months. Towards the beginning of the town hall, West Virginia University Professor of Law Allison Peck said that the administration is not respecting the balance of power outlined in the Constitution. Peck went on to use the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia as an example, saying that the Trump Administration is violating court orders to return Garcia and not respecting a congressional law passed in 1952 that Peck said Garcia had previously successfully invoked in immigration court.
After Peck, social worker Danny Trejo, who said he works a lot with Latino families, spoke on the impact the last few months has had on the immigrant community in Morgantown. He said that after federal law-enforcement reach an immigrant, the family that remain face hard times. '[ICE] usually get the breadwinners,' Trejo said. 'A lot of the families I'm hearing of are having problems trying to make ends meet and trying to decide if they're going to stay here or if they're going to go back to Latin America, Mexico, or South America.' Trejo went on to say that he is trying to organize donations for these families.
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Attendees were also invited to speak their thoughts and questions into a microphone. One woman asked why Senator Capito and Representative Moore were not standing up to President Trump, who she saw as breaking the law. A scientist lamented what he sees as the Trump Administration's attack on science and research. An elderly man decried that Medicare is at risk of losing significant funding under the Trump Administration. One man voiced his anger that a family member, who is a legal resident of the United States but is from Central America, is afraid to leave the house due to the Trump Administration's crackdown on immigration.
One of the organizers of the event, Mindy Holcomb, said she was heartened by the display shown at town hall.
'It's heartwarming, really, because they are concerned about their neighbors. They are concerned about their family. And they don't want to see people go hungry and they don't wanna see people suffer and die or become seriously ill.'
Holcomb went on to say that MICA has tried to meet with Senator Capito and Representative Moore with little success, and that MICA will continue to put pressure on Senator Capito and Representative Moore to try to get them to hear their voices.
'When people have stories like you've heard today, when they have suffering, only they can convey that,' Holcomb said. 'Having someone write down notes about what they're saying and convey that in theory to the congressman or the senator, that's not the same thing. That's not answering their questions. That's not hearing the pain that they are going through.'
Holcomb ended the interview by saying, '[Senator Capito and Representative Moore] don't work for the Trump Administration. They work for us. We are their boss, and they owe us answers.'
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