The Trump administration has reached a new low. After having nothing but praise for Kim Jong Un, the leader of the most despotic government on Earth, Trump has now initiated policies in our own country that are unprecedented in their cruelty.
Like you, I have watched with horror and disgust the countless stories and images of children being ripped away from their parents and stuck in cages for days, weeks and months without any contact or information about their well-being. I have read about parents being sent back to their home country without their children, and even stories about parents so distraught about the separation that they have ended their own lives.
As former First Lady Laura Bush stated; “Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. These images are eerily reminiscent of the internment camps for U.S. citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.”
The Trump administration policy of separating children from their parents at our border is a national disgrace. It is a moral abomination. And it can be stopped.
Like every member of the Senate Democratic Caucus, I have added my name as a co-sponsor of the Keep Families Together Act – legislation that would stop this detestable policy. Unfortunately, not one Republican senator has yet signed on. I need you to make your voice heard if we are going to change that:
More than any other country in the history of the modern world, the United States has been shaped in its identity and character by the process of immigration and the contributions of those immigrants.
I am proud to be the son of an immigrant.
My father came to this country from Poland without a nickel in his pocket.
And as a nation built by immigrants, we must strive for humane immigration policies that unify families, not tear them apart.
The Trump administration’s policy of separating children, including infants as young as one year old, from their parents at the border is inhumane, cruel and an affront to our values as Americans.
Tell Congress to act to stop it, today.
Over the course of the next days and weeks, I suspect we will talk a lot about comprehensive immigration reform. But what cannot get lost in the details here is that we are talking about people. We are talking about families.
It is time for this injustice to end.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders Is VT, USA Senator