For Immediate Release: June 20, 2018
Contact: Marie McIntosh, mmcintosh@ilrc.org, (978) 500-2748
Family Separations Will Continue Despite Trump Executive Order, Until Overzealous Prosecutions and Detention End, Says Immigrant Legal Resource Center
Today, the Trump administration released an executive order following their cruel and immoral policy of separating immigrant parents from their children at the border, leaving nearly 2,000 children without their parents in six short weeks, many of them in cages while their parents are detained and prosecuted.
Said Sameera Hafiz, senior policy strategist at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center:
“Trump’s directives have doubled down on family separations at the border to frighten immigrants from fleeing life-threatening violence. Make no mistake: this executive order is a misleading attempt to appease the public after seeing thousands of children separated from their parents, hearing their cries from the cages they have been placed in, and learning about the violence that they have survived. The executive order gives only the appearance of halting the thousands of family separations that Trump initiated and does not address the trauma that children and parents have already endured.
“The only way to solve the current crisis is to end the zero tolerance policy and stop prosecuting the act of migration. Without ending the prosecutions, family separations will not end. The administration must offer support systems for immigrants to build new lives instead of continuing to enact extreme and nativist policies that cause irreversible harm and expand the mass incarceration of people of color in the criminal justice system.”
For interviews, please contact Marie McIntosh at mmcintosh@ilrc.org or (978) 500-2748.
###
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) is a national nonprofit that works with immigrants, community organizations, legal professionals, and policy makers to build a democratic society that values diversity and the rights of all people. Through community education programs, legal training & technical assistance, and policy development & advocacy, the ILRC’s mission is to protect and defend the fundamental rights of immigrant families and communities. www.ilrc.org