Country singer Willie Nelson invites President Donald Trump to visit border detention centers with him
Singer Willie Nelson, in the most Willie way possible, invited Trump from his wife's Twitter handle to pay a visit to aborder detention center. The post read: "Hey Donald this is @WillieNelson. Let’s go down to a border detention center together to better understand what’s happening down there. Let’s talk!"
It isn't a surprise that Nelson has so openly addressed the President. He had earlier issued a statement on the separation of immigrant children from their parents at the US-Mexico border.
As the Guardian reported, in April, the US attorney general Jeff Sessions had announced 'zero-tolerance' policy on migrants and asylum seekers and said, "I have put in place a zero-tolerance policy for illegal entry on our south-west border. If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you."
The Trump administration has defended the policy with the President saying, "The United States will not be a migrant camp, and it will not be a refugee holding facility."
The country-music icon called the move "outrageous" criticizing the Department of Justice's policy under Trump. The Rolling Stone quoted Nelson saying, "What's going on at our southern border is outrageous. Christians everywhere should be up in arms. What happened to 'Bring us your tired and weak and we will make them strong?' This is still the promised land," Nelson says, citing lyrics from songwriter David Lynn Jones' "Living in the Promised land," which Nelson cut for his 1986 album The Promiseland.
Nelson's publicist, Elaine Schock, has verified that, although the post did not come from Nelson's personal account, it was definitely Nelson who typed it down. His own account (@WillieNelson) appears on the post, along with a tag to Donal Trump's Twitter handle. The post also includes several prominent legislators who were tagged, including, Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourk, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and media figures such as Rachel Maddow and Paul Begala.
Nelson has always been concerned with immigration issues. He had said to Rolling Stone in 2014, "I've been watching, and the only thing we can do is take care of those kids, whatever it takes. They're scared. They're being mistreated. And it's not a good way to start off your life. But it's a good opportunity for us to show a little bit of humanitarianism and take care of those kids. I know a lot of people want to send them back. I guess the closer you are to the situation, the more extreme emotions you have about it, but it seems to me the old golden rule, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,' or 'treat other people like you want to be treated.' Treat those kids like they were your kids."
