Stop tearing families apart

Stop tearing families apart

Started
May 30, 2018
Signatures: 863,652Next Goal: 1,000,000
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Why this petition matters

Started by Kids In Need of Defense

The Trump Administration recently began implementing a new “zero tolerance” prosecution policy that has separated hundreds of immigrant children, including infants and toddlers, from their parents upon arriving at the border. These families are often fleeing horrific violence, and parents are doing everything they can to protect their children by coming to the United States. Taking these children from their parents is inhumane, unnecessary, and unacceptable.

Sign our petition and demand that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stop tearing immigrant children from their parents.

Under Attorney General Sessions’ new policy, adults arriving at the border outside of designated ports of entry will be criminally prosecuted and sent to U.S. Marshal Service custody to await prosecution, and then transferred to immigration detention to await immigration proceedings. Children cannot be kept in adult detention facilities and will be rendered “unaccompanied,” transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and placed in different facilities and shelters for children, sometimes several states away from their parents.

Pediatricians and child welfare professionals have spoken out forcefully about the significant and enduring trauma forced separations inflict on children and their families. Family separation also creates challenges for children seeking legal protection, who must now prepare their cases with only limited access to information and documentation from their parents that could help to prove their claims. As a result, children may be unable to support their cases for asylum and be returned to harm or death in their home countries.

There is no law that compels the separation of children from their parents, and the Administration can and should immediately halt policies that embrace this cruel and unnecessary practice.

This ruthless and brutish targeting and treatment of particularly vulnerable children and families is being done in the name of all Americans.

Join us in calling on DHS to immediately stop separating immigrant families.

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Signatures: 863,652Next Goal: 1,000,000
Support now
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