Chanting “families belong together,” advocates peacefully demonstrated outside the home of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen Thursday evening. In front of the group was a cot holding stuffed animals wrapped in a Mylar blanket. “It’s thundering out here,” tweeted Kunoor Ojha of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, “but we’re louder.”
The demonstration follows advocates walking out on Nielsen’s Senate testimony on Wednesday; some also wrapped in Mylar blankets to represent the thousands of migrant children who were kidnapped from their parents under Nielsen’s policy, which she has repeatedly lied about, at one point even denying its existence.
To date, more than 100 migrant children separated from their parents under her policy continue to remain under U.S. custody, in blatant violation of a federal judge’s order. To add to the criminal behavior of this administration, these separations continue as a new report from Amnesty International finds the administration tore up far more families than officials publicly admitted.
The report also comes as officials have transferred hundreds of migrant kids, weekly and under the cover of night in order to reduce escape attempts, from child detention facilities across the U.S. to a prison camp in Tornillo, Texas, where lowered standards deprive children of daily classes. This is state-sanctioned child abuse, some of it carried out by Nielsen, and it’s being carried out with our tax dollars.
“Every night Sec. Nielsen gets to go to sleep with her family, in the safety of her home,” tweeted Helen Brosnan of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. “You know who goes to sleep alone, traumatized, and scared? Children ripped from their families at the border. How does she sleep at night? We showed up at her house to make sure she doesn’t.”
