SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

* indicates required
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
The Progressive

NewsWire

A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact: Email:,info@earthjustice.org

Earthjustice Condemns Inhumane Treatment of Migrant Families

People fleeing violence and poverty should not be criminalized.

WASHINGTON

The following is a statement from Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen:

"Families belong together and they certainly do not belong in cages. Earthjustice condemns the Trump administration's inhumane policy of forcibly separating migrant children from their parents. This policy should never have been enacted as it dehumanizes the most vulnerable among us and ignores the fact that every human being should be treated with dignity and respect. Migrants are fleeing desperate conditions in their home countries. They should not be denied their right to claim asylum and the right to remain together with their families. Medical experts say that forced separation can cause incalculable health trauma and that toxic stress induced under this policy could impede brain development. Reports that children are being denied the comfort of human touch is tantamount to torture.

Our policies should reflect our values as Americans and the administration's latest shift to force families into indefinite detention runs counter to those values. The cruel, morally repugnant policy changes are a violation of human rights and unfortunately reflective of some of the ugliest chapters of America's history: slavery, Japanese internment camps and the forced removal of Native American children from their families. We are better than this. We call on all Americans to stand in alliance with migrant families and demand an end to family separation and indefinite detention."

Read the statement online

Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.

800-584-6460