Campaign Action
House Democrats, led by Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York, have introduced the House counterpart of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s “Keep Families Together Act,” which would block the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from separating migrant families at the U.S./Mexico border. “We have a legal [and] moral obligation to act,” he wrote, “and the Trump admin family separation policy must stop.”
Since Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III announced the administration’s barbaric “zero tolerance” policy earlier this year, at least 2,000 migrant kids have been torn from the arms of parents, including a breastfeeding baby, according to one report. There are so many families being arrested, that the government has opened a “tent city” for kids—this is a concentration camp—while parents are being shipped off to federal prisons, with absolutely no plan set in motion on how families will be reunited.
It’s a crisis that Donald Trump could stop as quickly as he started it, and one aided by complicit congressional Republicans, who are instead proposing to jail families together indefinitely. This shouldn’t be hard. Families must be kept together, and not in jail. “The President could end this cruel family separation policy today,” Nadler said, “but instead he uses it as a political bargaining chip to push his agenda. That is why Congress must act.”
According to Nadler’s office, the legislation would permit separation only in “extraordinary circumstances,” including “trafficking indicators or other concerns of risk to the child.” Even then, that must be approved by the Port Director or the Chief Border Patrol agent of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Currently, the administration is tearing apart migrant families simply because they can—and adding to this horror story is that we don’t know the full picture on how detained families are being treated.
Nadler was among the congressional delegation who refused to leave an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey last Father’s Day weekend, physically blocking an open door until at least part of the group was allowed to go inside. Ultimately, some were. But other members of Congress have been blocked from visiting detention facilities, including U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who was blocked from entering a child detention facility in Brownsville, Texas.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are nowhere to be seen. Legislatively, Senate Republicans could join all Senate Democrats supporting U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s “Keep Families Together Act,” but none currently do. Nadler’s counterpart has over 190 signatures so far, and no Republicans either. Don’t let them off the hook. Check to see if they’ve signed these bills (House version here, Senate version here), and, if not, call them at (202) 224-3121 to demand they join now.
“Children should not be ripped from the arms of their parents,” tweeted Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence of Michigan. “Babies need to stay with their loving parents. Keep Families Together Act stops the Trump administration's government sanctioned child abuse policy.”