#FamiliesBelongTogether ✊

Photo Credit: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

The Trump Administration is needlessly and cruelly separating children from their families as they enter the United States seeking asylum. This inhumane, immoral, and socially corrupt policy must be stopped.

On April 6, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Department of Homeland Security would begin prosecuting all individuals who cross the US border, unauthorized. Facing criminal charges, parents would go to detention centers, leaving their children unaccompanied.

The White House has claimed that these forced separations are a result of a "horrible law," however a recent report published by Politifact notes that this claim is false, and through the enforcement of the Department of Homeland Security's corrupt policy families are being torn apart. It is the callous decision of the Trump Administration to prosecute parents who are seeking refuge and asylum that is the cause of these separations.

Under the White House's directive nearly 2,000 children have found themselves separated from their families, with approximately 30,000 children that could find themselves sent to similar detention facilities by August. Presently, approximately 1,000 migrant children are currently detained in a prison-like facility just outside of Miami, called the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children. Representatives of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, Center for Community Change, and the Fair Immigrant Reform Movement recently met with US Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz in a roundtable forum to discuss this horrible policy of separating immigrant families by putting children in detention centers.

It is imperative that our community rise up and speak out against these unjust and abhorrent policies that further criminalize our identities and terrorize our families and our communities. This article contains a list of grassroots organizations across the country who are committed to ending the separation of families and fighting against these inhumane policies.

We cannot stand by and bear witness to innocent children being put in tents, forced to sleep on the floors of prison-like facilities after being ripped from their families; we as a nation must come together and realize that we have reached a crisis of morality. It is impossible for us to remain silent over the echoing cries of these children being held in detention centers.

We need our entire community to elevate their voices and demand action to stop this torture. I've made a call to Congress, and I will continue to call again and again until change is made. I hope you too can call your member of Congress and tell them that families belong together! Call Congress (202) 224-3121

Tell them to cosponsor and pass:

• S.2937 – the HELP Separated Children Act

• S. 2468 - Fair Day in Court for Kids Act of 2018

#Immigrantion #FLIC