Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)

The ongoing genocide in Gaza is obviously a stain on the European community and the US. Is the fear over tariffs going to inhibit our Government from raising serious human rights abuses within the US?

I have seen videos - I am sure the Taoiseach has too - of children shackled and chained in an LA detention centre by ICE and being transported, in scenes reminiscent of the Holocaust, before the end of the Second World War. I have also seen alligator Alcatraz, in which hundreds of people are being detained, with no convictions and no charges, in the Everglades, in Florida. Trump has called these people deranged and dangerous. They are being kept in cages in a swampland with pythons and alligators. There are 700 people there, apparently. When a Democrat Congresswoman emerged from there yesterday, she was shaken and completely unable to speak about the horrors she witnessed. We have a duty to speak up about human rights abuses in the US or any other powerful nation and not to be deterred for economic reasons.

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