Immigrant and civil rights activists emblazoned the facade of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., with a reminder about the Trump administration’s cruel and barbaric policy tearing babies from the arms of migrant parents at the U.S./Mexico border: silence is complicity.
“This administration,” said Tyler Moran, managing director for the Immigration Hub, “has an intentional policy of taking children as young as 12 months old from their parents’ arms as a deterrent from coming to seek protection at our border,” while other asylum-seekers are getting barred from entering the U.S. altogether.
This is in violation of U.S. and international law, and according to a recent rebuke from the U.N. High Commission for Human Rights, a violation of child rights. “Now,” Moran continues, “over 3,000 children are in foster care or shelter, when they should be with their parents.”
According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), more than 650 kids were kidnapped from their parents, many of whom are asylum-seekers, during a two-week period alone last month, and child detention facilities run under the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) are getting so full, the Trump administration may soon put these kids in military bases. These are internment camps. This is the shame of our nation.
But we can fight back. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and more than 30 senators have introduced legislation that would bar the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from tearing families apart—and not one single Republican has come out in support of it. As the signage said, silence is complicity. Call your U.S. senators at (202) 224-3121 to demand they protect kids, and show your support at a Families Belong rally on June 14.