Texas has been ground zero in the Trump administration’s fight to separate migrant families, as well as to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. But the state is also home to vocal opponents of anti-immigrant policies, like United We Dream (UWD) Houston and Houston police chief Art Acevedo.
Acevedo, along with Storm Lake, Iowa, police chief Mark Prosser, write in a joint op-ed that “simply put, immigrant families are not threats to national security”:”
Even ignoring its questionable legality, detaining entire families does not make our communities safer. What it does is make children suffer.
Over the past few weeks, more than 2,000 migrant kids have been kidnapped from parents due to the administration’s barbaric “zero tolerance” policy, with no plan on how to reunite them. These families should never have been separated in the first place, and Donald Trump’s sham executive order calling for them to be detained together is no solution to the crisis he created either.
As Acevedo and Prosser write, “there are multiple alternatives to family detention” that are not just vastly cheaper—$300 a day for family detention versus $6 a day for alternatives—but far more humane.
“Regulated and mandated check-ins with law enforcement,” they continue, “telephonic communication, connecting families with social service providers, or in the most extreme cases electronically monitoring some individuals: These viable alternatives balance safety and compassion.”
One alternative, the Family Case Management Program “kept families out of detention while successfully getting them to hearings more than 99 percent of the time.” It works—or used to. Trump terminated it last year. Now dozens of law enforcement leaders are calling on Congress to act:
… We, along with over 50 other law enforcement leaders, signed on to a Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force letter to congressional leadership, calling on them to examine proven, effective alternatives to family detention that also ensure families attend immigration hearings and required check-ins.
According to Mother Jones, “earlier this month, 108 members of Congress signed a letter that called for replacing family separation with ‘robust funding for community-based alternatives to detention, such as the Family Case Management Program.’”
“After years of public service,” the police chiefs write, “we never imagined turning on the television and seeing children living under tents and in cages, far away from family. We never imagined seeing mothers and fathers locked up, with no idea what would happen tomorrow.”
“What’s best for families is still what’s best for our country and the safety of all Americans,” they conclude. “That means embracing proven alternatives to detaining children and families in what amounts to family jails. “