Dear Friend,
During the Trump Administration, this country was shocked and horrified by the stories of Border Patrol forcibly separating parents from their children. Biden and the Democrats promised to stop the practice, but a horrifying new report shows that family separation is ongoing – though it is much less systematic and long term than under Trump.
This summer, U.S. Border Patrol agents separated migrant children as young as 8 from their parents. The interviews with separated children "revealed significant emotional distress related to separation, including sustained crying and disorientation" stemming from their inability to communicate with their parents.
There are no words to describe the trauma of separating children from their parents. For the parent, every moment is filled with pain knowing that your child is scared and alone and you cannot help them. For the child, every moment is a moment of terror that instills a trauma that may last a lifetime.
This practice is a crime against humanity, and it is shameful for the United States government – even under a Democratic president – to engage in this. |
When I was on the debate stage as a presidential candidate in 2020, I said this about Trump’s family separation:
“If you forcibly take a child from their parents’ arms, you are kidnapping them. And if you take a lot of children and put them in a detainment center, thus inflicting chronic trauma upon them, that’s called child abuse. This is collective child abuse. It is a crime. Just because the government is doing it doesn’t make it less of a crime. These are state sponsored crimes!”
I stand by that statement. I am glad that the government no longer separates families for months on end as standard “zero tolerance” policy. But even family separation on a smaller and shorter basis is unacceptable child abuse.
Even one day of forced separation is one day too long. As president, I would not allow these crimes to take place. |
