The Administration continues to take significant and dangerous steps that are eroding the foundations of the immigration system and the international law that upholds access to asylum for those fleeing danger and violence. These practices of separating families, increasing immigrant detention, and redefining access to asylum is abhorrent and undermines our values.
In the past month alone the Administration recently issued updated policies routinely separating children from their parents. From April 19 to May 31 nearly 2,000 children were forcibly and cruelly taken from their parents. This dehumanizing process puts children at risk and sets our country up to willingly participate in human rights violations on a mass scale. And now the Department of Justice has stated that those seeking asylum from domestic violence or gang violence will likely not be eligible to receive asylum. This action undermines the laws that determine access to asylum and more importantly undermine our moral standing as a country. Furthermore this change in policy takes back the progress we have made in women’s rights by not recognizing domestic violence as a credible fear.
Now is the time to act to protect family unity and stop systematic family separation, help those seeking asylum find safety, and seek to answer the call to love all of our neighbors. Please call your Member of Congress and tell them that, as a person of faith, you oppose the forcible detention and separation of families and want them to support polices that protect and unite immigrant and refugee families. Urge them to increase oversight of the Administration to end these unjust practices, act to defund harmful immigration practices, and instead work to bring families together with compassionate and thoughtful immigration policies.
Looking for other ways to respond? Download our UCC toolkit for Communities Supporting Central American Families Seeking Asylum.