Pres. Trump is pressured to halt separating children from parents as part of ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy
25th June 2018 · 0 Comments
By Meghan Holmes
Contributing Writer
Last Wednesday, Donald Trump signed an executive order changing his widely criticized “zero tolerance” policy for undocumented persons apprehended at the border, a policy that has led to the separation of more than 2,000 children from their parents while awaiting the outcome of legal proceedings.
Immediate resistance followed the implementation of the zero tolerance policy, including a unanimous resolution by the New Orleans City Council opposing the policy as well as local and national protests.
The administration’s new policy will keep parents and children together during their indefinite detainment, “to maintain family unity, where appropriate and consistent with law and available resources,” according to the text of the order.
On June 18, Attorney General Jeff Sessions arrived in New Orleans to speak to the National Sheriff’s Association at the convention center downtown, where he defended the Trump Administration’s stance on immigration. Around 100 activists protested outside the building, as police barred them from entering the property. Law enforcement officials issued summons to five people, but no one was arrested.
“I think it’s heartbreaking what’s happening at the border right now,” says Grace Smith, who attended the protest. “I just want Sessions and Scalise and everyone to know that I do not support what’s happening.”
City Council President Jason Williams agrees. “This is getting worse by the hour, every time a child is separated, and it’s definitely the job of state and municipal governments to take a firm stance against this policy, quickly, and to send a loud message. We don’t have the infrastructure for this. What about mothers with nursing infants? There are so many issues arising that we have no plan for,” he said.
The Trump Administration began this new zero tolerance policy in May, shortly after more than 1,000 immigrants seeking refugee status arrived at the United States’ southern border. The caravan’s organizers, known as Pueblos Sin Fronteras, walked en masse more than a thousand miles from Central America beginning in March, and many now have been separated from their families and await processing at makeshift facilities along the southern border.
“As an African American and descendent of slaves, I see these detention facilities and can’t help but feel that we are harkening back to some of our darkest moments as a nation,” Williams said. “These heart-wrenching images of children of color separated from their parents are reminiscent of chattel slavery to me, and it’s also not going to lead to the results Attorney General Sessions describes. It’s going to cost us more money than any immigration policy ever has.”
During the sheriff’s conference, both Sessions and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielson spoke, arguing that harsh border policies ultimately protect the country, and questioning the legitimacy of some separated families.
“We do not have the luxury of pretending that all individuals coming to this country as a family unit are a family,” Nielsen said, to a supportive crowd at the convention center.
The release of this recent executive order represents a shift away from past weeks’ rhetoric coming from many members of the administration speaking in support of the policy, though the president was clear to reiterate that anyone apprehended crossing the border will be criminally prosecuted.
“We are going to have strong, very strong borders, but we are going to keep the families together,” he said as he signed the order.
Enforcing the new order will require changing an extant 1997 consent decree, known as the Flores Settlement, limiting the amount of time children can spend in a detention facility to twenty days. If courts do not agree to the change, the executive order will likely face immediate legal challenge. In the meantime, advocates wonder what will happen to the 2,300 children already separated.
“They’ve given mothers and fathers a 1-800 number and told them to call this after their court date to try and reunite with their kids,” Williams said. “That could take two or three years. Even a day of separation damages these children. They will be left with trauma and we will have self-inflicted wounds as a nation.”
This article originally published in the June 25, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
