Please read this post in detail and take action by calling and visiting in groups to your congressional leaders and senators. It’s imperative you take peaceful legislative action to ensure safety of migrant children who are being separated from their parents at the border and oppose the separation of children from their parents.
You must demand the following:
My name is [Your Name] and I reside at [Your address and District]. I’m deeply concerned and ashamed to be an American today witnessing such draconian and inhumane polices towards migrant children. It’s unacceptable to take children away from parents and imperative that such practices are suspended immediately. It’s also imperative that migrants and children held in the detention centers across the country are given proper medical care, food, privacy, protection from any type of abuse that includes verbal and physical, and are not subject to any sort of harassment. I strongly demand that migrants and minors have access to legal counsel who will be able to better assist the detainees.
On Tuesday, United Nations human rights office urged US an immediate halt to the practice of separating children from parents saying it violates human rights and international law. We must respect laws of International community.
A federal judge in San Diego on Wednesday refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, suggests the court would be open to considering a claim that taking children away from parents who are legally trying to seek asylum in the United States constitutes a violation of the family’s rights to due process. The judge said that the allegations in the suit “sufficiently describe government conduct that arbitrarily tears at the sacred bond between parent and child, and is emblematic of the exercise of power without any reasonable justification in the service of an otherwise legitimate governmental objective.” I am asking you to act to ensure that human rights principles and laws are upheld and children are not separated from their parents.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
[Your name]
Contact your Senators:
https://www.senate.gov/…/contact_informati…/senators_cfm.cfm
Contact your Congressional leaders:
https://www.house.gov/representati…/find-your-representative
Additional information:
Based on recent reporting by Washington Post the number of migrant children held without their parents by the US government has surged 21% since last month to 10,773 children. It’s still unclear exactly how many of the 10,773 children being held in government custody were actually forcibly separated from their parents — a Customs and Border Protection official told lawmakers at a hearing last week that 658 children had been separated from 638 adults between May 6 and May 19 under the new zero tolerance policy.
The increase comes after Trump administration imposed a new “zero tolerance” policy to prosecute migrants who cross the US border illegally. The policy means that migrant parents who cross the border with their children are forcibly separated while they await criminal prosecution.
According to immigration justice center unaccompanied immigrant children face many challenges navigating the immigration system alone, including:
- No right to court-appointed counsel. Unless they can afford attorneys or secure pro bono counsel, they appear in court without legal representation.
- A confusing and complex court system. Deportation proceedings against children often begin in the jurisdiction where the child is placed in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). Once a child is released from an ORR shelter to a sponsor or to foster care, it is the child’s responsibility – regardless of age or legal representation – to submit paperwork to inform the court that he or she has moved and to file a formal motion to change venue if the new address is under the jurisdiction of a different court. If a child does not properly update his or her address, he or she could be ordered deported in absentia for failing to appear in court.
- Lack of clear guidelines to grant relief. DHS has yet to provide clear guidelines on the exercise of prosecutorial discretion (PD) as it applies to UICs. Expanded exercise of PD would help provide relief for many UICs with strong ties to the United States who are not a priority for deportation.
- Absence of legally binding regulations to protect children in DHS custody. Upon apprehension, UICs are held in DHS custody. Although there are standards to guide the treatment of UICs, DHS lacks appropriate legally binding regulations to protect children in their custody. Currently, little oversight exists to ensure that UICs are treated humanely and cared for according to child-appropriate protocols while in DHS custody.