I am originally from Dallas, Texas, but now live in Milwaukee. My father crossed the U.S.-Mexican border when he was around 21 years old. Therefore, the infamous border crisis which has separated more than 2,000 immigrant children in the past six weeks hits me very close to home. When I see the faces behind the cages, I see my family. I can’t imagine the pain faced by the mothers and fathers who have had their children forcibly separated from them and who have no knowledge of where their babies are or when they will see them again. Donald Trump and his administration are responsible.
This is a horrendous practice—whose optics and ethics have been condemned by Democrats and Republicans, alike—and whose legality has been challenged by the ACLU. Thanks to mounting public pressure, Trump issued an executive order last week ostensibly addressing the family separation issue, but it doesn’t really “fix” anything. Instead, it merely replaces immediate family separation with either indefinite family detention or continuing prosecution of parents and eventual separation. Both are unacceptable. Children don’t belong in prisons, and the United States has a bleak history with racialized detention—such as the World War II-era Japanese American internment camps, Native American “boarding schools” and our current criminal justice system.
It is only because he was faced with a huge public backlash that Trump signed his executive order purporting to end family separation. Instead, his administration will detain families together, and they have asked a court to agree to let them detain families with children indefinitely while they work to deport the families. The prison-industrial complex is already making plans to build more detention centers, and the military is building tent cities on military bases to hold migrant families. All of this is justified by the false and racist assumption that families seeking humanitarian asylum in the U.S. will not make their court dates if they are not held in detention centers until they are deported. The fact is the vast majority of them do.
Criminalizing; Separating; Banning
In an enormous recent victory, U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw from San Diego ordered the reunification of thousands of parents and children forcibly separated by the Trump administration. We hope these families will be back together within 30 days—and less for younger children. This ACLU lawsuit requested, and was granted, a nationwide injunction, but we suspect it might not be followed. Trump’s family separation crisis is not over until the administration proves the policy has actually ended and every single child has been reunited with his or her parents.
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Immigrants are not criminals; people of color are not criminals, yet our country is criminalizing and separating as many brown and black families as it can. Every day, the Trump administration is seeing what it can get away with, pushing the envelope. It’s not stopping with family separation at the border, it is the Muslim Ban, which separates Muslim people from family members in other countries, and mass incarceration and police violence that separate black and brown families from their loved ones. It is a vicious attempt to divide us through racialized lies. We must recognize that all of our rights are increasingly under attack, and that we won’t win unless we fight together. They separate us—because power comes from families and communities who are united.
On Saturday, June 30, there were joint actions all over the country, and we made our voices heard. In our state alone, the ACLU of Wisconsin participated in or helped organize a dozen demonstrations from Eau Claire to Kenosha. The action must not stop there. Everyone needs to use their power to help reunite children with their families and it doesn’t require hours of marching to get there.
What Can You Do?
There’s plenty a person can do. Please contact your congressperson and ask them to support the Nadler Bill. U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (New York’s 10th Congressional District) introduced the Keep Families Together Act (H.R. 6135) on Tuesday, June 19. This bill would “keep families together, limit criminal prosecutions for asylum seekers, increase child welfare training, establish public policy preference for family reunification, add procedures for separated families [and] establish other required measures.”
While you’re at it, ask your congressperson to reign in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as well. The DHS is the Trump administration’s key tool for terrorizing immigrants. The department has been responsible for inflicting heinous abuses on children in its custody years before it started ripping them away from their families and detaining them in chain-link kennels as part of this vile family separation policy. The United Nations, in fact, has censured our country for these despicable actions.
The department has also unleashed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to antagonize immigrant communities throughout this country by conducting warrantless searches in homes, workplaces and on daily commutes. Among other things, our state’s dairy industry is threatened by these actions where they’re losing their law-abiding farmworkers through these high-profile deportation proceedures.
Another suggestion: Contact Gov. Scott Walker and demand that he bring Wisconsin National Guard troops back from the U.S.-Mexican border. We don’t need to waste taxpayer dollars backing up Trump’s self-aggrandizing gestures.
Be sure to check out the Shepherd Express’ Saving Our Democracy column, published in every weekly issue, for pro-active events taking place throughout the greater Milwaukee area that you can become directly involved in.
Marissa Ocampo is an organizer with the ACLU of Wisconsin.
