El Diario NY - Families Belong Together

Op-Ed

By Joe Crowley and Luis Gutierrez

Families belong together.

It was our belief of this innate fact that forced us to take to the streets of Washington this week to demand that President Trump's administration change its inhumane policy of ripping babies from their mothers' arms when families present themselves for refuge at the border.

We raised our voice in solidarity with thousands of families that have been separated at our border as a result of the cruel and unnecessary "zero tolerance" policy.

Since the administration announced it will prosecute parents crossing the border, including those fleeing violence and persecution and seeking asylum in our country, more than 1,300 children have been separated from their parents.

The children, some only a few months old, have been exposed to unnecessary trauma. When separated from their parents, they are put in cold cage-like rooms, housed in military warehouses or relegated to foster care, where they have little or no contact with their parents who may be in detention hundreds or thousands of miles away.

The treatment that these children and parents receive is inhumane, anti-American and violates their human right to voluntary and legally request asylum.

With these actions, President Trump reveals his viciousness and absolute disdain for our history and values. He is showing that he is not ashamed to inflict irreparable harm on children in order to advance his anti-immigrant agenda and cater to the most extreme voices within his party.

Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in Congress is complicit in this cruelty by refusing to show the compassion they profess and by refusing to defend the "family values' they claim to represent.

Democrats won't sit back while this takes place. We won't allow the Trump administration and the Republican Party to continue inflicting pain and suffering on families and children who have come to our country seeking refuge and a better future.

We will continue to raise our voices and demand the administration to end this cruel and unnecessary policy.

We will continue to demand answers from those responsible for enforcing Trump's family separation policy. The American people deserve to know where these children are and how the administration plans to reunite them with their families.

We won't rest until President Trump reunites these families and ends what would be remembered as one of the most cruel and dark chapters in our history.

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