Speed of Life: ProPublica

Published on Jun 18, 2018

ProPublica has obtained audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, in which children can be heard wailing as an agent jokes, “We have an orchestra here.”
- Category
  - News & Politics
- License
  - Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the U.S.-Mexico border on June 12, 2018 in Mcallen, Texas. John Moore/GETTY IMAGES

JUST ANNOUNCED: Major protest to Keep Families Together on June 30th in Washington *and* communities around the country. Go to http://familiesbelongtogether.org to plug into events. All hands on deck NOW to end this brutality and move towards freedom for all: kids AND their families.
- How to Fight Back – Pressure Congress
Call, email, tweet Congress. Your two Senators and one Representative are in the best position to force the administration to abandon this new policy. Please contact them and ask them to immediately stop the separation of children from their parents at the border. Also ask them to support bills that will help reunited children already taken from their parents and also prohibit future removals. These include the Senate’s HELP Separated Children Act and Keep Families Together Act.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has introduced The Keep Families Together Act (S.3036) which currently has 49 co-sponsors and is supported by American Academy of Pediatrics, Kids In Need of Defense (KIND), Young Center for Immigrant Rights and the Women’s Refugee Commission. Please call your Senators today and tell them you want them to support this bill.

The ACLU offers a script for calling the Senate - Link Here.

Find their contact info at Contacting Congress or at Call Congress.

Also, you can contact ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) directly. Write to them here or call them at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE.
TIP: If your Senators or Representative aren’t on board, explain that you will call back regularly for updates on this issue. Then, tell them that this issue is so important to you, that if they do not act to end the separation of children from their parents, that you will actively work to get their opponent elected in November by raising money and speaking to every constituent you can get in front of.

Families Belong Together March- Los Angeles, June 14, 2018
photo by Gregg Chadwick

How to Fight Back –
Please Support These Organizations:

The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights The Young Center is a champion for the rights and best interests of unaccompanied immigrant children, making sure that wherever they land, whether here in the U.S. or in their home country, they are safe.

Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) Advocates for children’s rights as they migrate alone.

The Florence Project Free legal services to men, women, and unaccompanied children in immigration custody in Arizona

Informed Immigrant Understand your rights. The website is full of helpful information. Search for groups working on these immigration issues located near you here

RAICES Based in Texas, they offer free or low-cost legal services to immigrant children and families. They are seeking both donations and volunteers. Donate here and sign up as a volunteer here.

Border Angels This organization advocates for humane immigration reform with a special focus on issues at the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly in San Diego County.

The Texas Civil Rights Project is seeking “volunteers who speak Spanish, Mam, Q’eqchi’ or K’iche’ and have paralegal or legal assistant experience.”

The ACLU is litigating this policy in California.

If you’re an immigration lawyer, the American Immigration Lawyers Association will be sending around a volunteer list for you to help represent the women and men with their asylum screening, bond hearings, ongoing asylum representation, etc. Please sign up.

Al Otro Lado is a binational organization that works to offer legal services to deportees and migrants in Tijuana, Mexico, including deportee parents whose children remain in the U.S.

CARA — a consortium of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the American Immigration Council, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association — provides legal services at family detention centers.

Human Rights First is a national organization with roots in Houston that needs help from lawyers too.

Kids in Need of Defense works to ensure that kids do not appear in immigration court without representation, and to lobby for policies that advocate for children’s legal interests. Donate here.

The Legal Aid Justice Center Virginia based center providing unaccompanied minors legal services and representation.

Pueblo Sin Fronteras is an organization that provides humanitarian aid and shelter to migrants on their way to the U.S.

Together Rising is another Virginia-based organization that’s helping provide legal assistance for 60 migrant children who were separated from their parents and are currently detained in Arizona.

The Urban Justice Center’s Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project is working to keep families together.

Women’s Refugee Commission advocates for the rights and protection of women, children, and youth fleeing violence and persecution.

ActBlue has aggregated many of these groups under a single button.

CLINIC’s Defending Vulnerable Populations project offers case assistance to hundreds of smaller organizations all over the country that do direct services for migrant families and children.

American Immigrant Representation Project (AIRP), which works to secure legal representation for immigrants.

CASA in Maryland, D.C., Virginia, and Pennsylvania. They litigate, advocate, and help with representation of minors needing legal services.

Freedom for Immigrants (Formerly CIVIC), which has been a leading voice opposing immigrant detention.

The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center represents all of the immigrant kids placed by the government in foster care in Michigan (one of the biggest foster care placement states). About two-thirds are their current clients are separation cases, and they work to find parents and figure out next steps.

The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project is doing work defending and advancing the rights of immigrants through direct legal services, systemic advocacy, and community education.

The Women’s Refugee Commission has aggregated five actions everyone can take that go beyond donating funds.

International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) — which organizes law students and lawyers to develop and enforce a set of legal and human rights for refugees and displaced persons — just filed suit challenging the cancellation of the Central American Minors program.

Families Belong Together March- Los Angeles, June 14, 2018
photo by Gregg Chadwick

How To Fight Back –
Support Petitions and Calls to Action

The ACLU is gathering signatures to petition Kevin K. McAleenan, Commissioner of United States Customs and Border Protection to stop the government from abusing immigrant children. You can find the petition here.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has recommended guidelines for human rights at international borders which you can read here. The reported actions our DHS is taking do not comply with these guidelines. You can contact the UN Office for Human Rights here.

Amnesty International has been calling for an end to the U.S. policy of separating children at the border. Their call to action can be found at the end of this post here.

Families Belong Together March- Los Angeles, June 14, 2018
photo by Gregg Chadwick

How to Fight Back – Stay Informed

Important Recent Articles on Trump's Immigrant Child Roundup

UN says US must stop separating migrant children from their parents

At the border, my son was taken from me

Why the Trump administration bears the blame for separating children from their families at the border

Inside Casa Padre, the converted Walmart where the U.S. is holding nearly 1,500 immigrant children

'Toxic stress' and other permanent damage caused by stripping immigrant children from their parents

The Trump administration’s policy of separating families is designed to erase hope—with devastating consequences for thousands of children.

The administration is building a tent city to house the separated children

Defense Contractors Cashing in on Immigrant Kids’ Detention

‘It’s Horrendous’: The Heartache of a Migrant Boy Taken From His Father

A family was separated at the border, and this distraught father took his own life

I work with children separated from caregivers at the border. What happens is unforgivable.

Migrant in detention says her child was taken away while she breastfed

Sanders says it's 'biblical to enforce the law' when asked about separating families at the border

Sessions cites Bible passage used to defend slavery in defense of separating immigrant families

Read the full story here: https://propub.li/2tcYE9M

How to Fight Back – Make Sure That You Are Registered to Vote and Vote the Child Snatchers Out!

This is callous. This is inhumane. This is immoral. Separating children from their parents is not an immigration policy. This erodes our nation's heart, our soul and our commitment to civil and human rights.
These are children, not political pawns. https://t.co/9RTJ6awKM6
— Anne Frank Center (@AnneFrankCenter) June 18, 2018