From Moms Rising (https://www.momsrising.org/):
In a stunning revelation, the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says that not only were “thousands” more migrant children separated by the administration than previously known, but that they didn’t even know how many children were taken away from their families because of failures to track families as they were being separated! [1]
This is horrifying and unacceptable!
Go to https://action.momsrising.org/sign/Reunite_every_child/ to tell Congress to engage in aggressive oversight of immigration agencies, and to say NO to using our tax dollars for family separation and incarceration!
It is horrific that thousands of children were forcibly removed from their parents, and unspeakable that the fate of these children is still unknown. To date, no one has been held accountable for this ethical and humanitarian disaster. Instead the administration continues to demand more funding for the very agencies that separated children as a condition for reopening the government, including demanding funding that would pay for 52,000 detention beds to jail immigrant families, money to hire more of the agents who were responsible for separating kids, and even seeking to eliminate protections for asylum seeking kids who arrive at the border without a parent![2]
The administration’s policy of purposeful child separation is a moral failure for our nation, inflicting deep trauma on already vulnerable children. Moreover, the anxiety and distrust children suffer when they’re institutionalized away from loved ones can cause long-lasting mental and physical health problems, particularly for small children who need personal attention in their formative years.[3]
Children who experience extended separation from their parents as a result of incarceration or detention are at increased risk of facing a variety of physical, mental, and behavioral health issues throughout the rest of their lives. In fact, this type of child-parent separation is classified as a specific type of trauma: An adverse childhood experience (ACE).[4] Moreover, family detention is not only cruel, but it’s also more expensive than alternatives to family detention such as the Family Case Management Program, (FCMP), that the Trump administration terminated it in 2017. Under the Family Case Management Program, children and their parents were placed into a program that provided individualized family service plans, and had a proven 99% success rate ensuring the family attended their hearings. The Family Case Management Program cost only $36 per family, per day, in comparison to family detention which costs on average $798 for a family (2.5 individuals). [5]
There is no excuse for the administration’s cruel treatment of immigrant children and families. We can stop this!
All children deserve to be with loved ones outside of cages, and all children deserve to have their rights, and bonds of love with their families protected.
Please take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family and post this link on your Facebook and Twitter accounts: https://action.momsrising.org/sign/Reunite_every_child?t=10&akid=11677%2E2540879%2EyYcPgP
[1] Separation May Have Hit Thousands More Migrant Children Than Reported [2] Senate Appropriations [3] AAP Statement on Executive Order on Family Separation [4] Keeping Kids and Parents Together [5] The Real Alternatives to Detention
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