The following statement is attributable to Héctor Figueroa, President of 32BJ SEIU:

“Thousands of our union brothers and sisters, along with over 800,000 federal employees are severely suffering from the President’s refusal to allow the government to reopen. Their lives and those of the DREAMers and TPS holders shouldn’t be used as a political football.

“We call on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to allow the Senate to vote on bipartisan and clean appropriation bills that would allow the government to quickly reopen as negotiations on border security and immigration continue.

“Senator McConnell’s intransigence, as surely as President Trump, is holding hundreds of thousands of government workers hostage, including many of our brothers and sisters at 32BJ SEIU.”

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With nearly 170,000 members in eleven states and Washington, D.C., 32BJ SEIU is the largest property service workers union in the country and one of the largest representing immigrant workers.