I just visited a shelter for separated children in California. The kids had a place to sleep, food to eat, a school to attend and medical care. Everything, but what they need — their parents.
We must reunite these families:
facebook.com/RepAdamSchiff/…
We must reunite these families:
facebook.com/RepAdamSchiff/…
The shelter has 16 kids separated from their parents. Most had been in the facility for weeks. The parents of 2 of them had already been deported. HHS has identified all the parents, but 2 kids had yet to speak to their parent, because the detention centers are disorganized.
For children whose parents have been deported, the family can decide to seek to place the child with a relative in the U.S. or to have the child deported. But if placed with an undocumented relative, that child could face a second separation. It’s unconscionable.
The staff is caring, the facilities were clean, and the organization running them also serves refugee children and other unaccompanied minor immigrants. But none of that can make up for the trauma the kids are enduring.
I asked one of those charged with the care of these kids how it affected them to see these children missing their parents and to know this was completely unnecessary. It is heartbreaking for them as well.
This is a completely manmade disaster. It is the result of a President who willed the separation to happen, an AG who was happy to carry it out, and a GOP Congress unwilling to do anything about it. We must end this separation immediately and make sure it never happens again.
