Today, the Trump administration has defied a court order and failed to meet yet another reunification deadline to reunite more than 1,500 children who were separated from their parents. Make no mistake–Trump created the family separation crisis, and his own policy has led to thousands of children being separated from their families.
When history is written, Trump’s treatment of immigrant families will be remembered as one of our nation’s darkest hours. America has forever been a nation of immigrants, yet the Trump administration is actively engineering a humanitarian crisis.
Now, the Trump administration is using every excuse not to reunite separated families. They’ve continued to incarcerate children in nightmarish conditions, deport parents without their children, and refuse immigrants urgent medical care with dire consequences. They’re even putting infants into deportation court by themselves. The only reason any children have been reunited with their parents is because courts are forcing the Trump administration to start dealing with the crisis they created. Trump officials deserve no credit for these reunifications.
In fact, the Trump administration plans to detain thousands of additional immigrant children, and DOD and HHS are already planning to build new detention camps to house them. The Trump administration is diverting tens of millions of dollars from other vital health programs to deal with the damage caused by its family separation policy.
This was always Trump’s goal: to use trauma to try to deter people from seeking asylum in the United States instead of addressing the root causes of the problem.
Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and Republicans in Congress are complicit in Trump’s inhumane immigration policies. They’ve stood aside while Trump created a humanitarian crisis on our border. Trump and Republicans never wanted to pass a meaningful immigration fix. They sabotaged Dream Act legislation, enacted the Muslim ban, and now they are trying to delay bills to keep families together until after the election. If Republicans were serious about ending the trauma at the border, they would support clean and permanent legislation to undo it – such as the Keeping Families Together Act in the Senate and the House.
Democrats will hold Republicans responsible in November for their cruelty to children and families. We believe diversity and compassion are our nation’s greatest strengths. And we will continue the fight to protect and expand opportunities for immigrant families and all Americans.