“It’s unconscionable that this Administration is looking for new ways to create broken families, instead of keeping them whole”
Cleveland, OH — Ahead of Mother’s Day, fifteen faith and community-based organizations in Ohio issued an open letter condemning Trump Administration immigration policies that needlessly separate mothers from their children.
The letter cites examples of specific Ohioans whose lives have been upended by the current mass deportation approach–Maribel Trujillo, Beatriz Casillas, Edith Espinal, and Leonor Garcia–as well as the Administration’s cruel policy of separating children from parents when families come to seek protection in the United States.
As Masha Gessen describes in The New Yorker, taking children from parents in order to send a message to others–in this case, to try to keep them from seeking safety in the United States–is a tried and true tactic of authoritarian states.
The Ohio groups’ letter says:
These are un-American policies that go against our entire value system. The bond between parent and child is primal and irreplaceable. It’s unconscionable that this Administration is looking for new ways to create broken families, instead of keeping them whole.
The letter is signed by the following groups: Akron Interfaith Immigration Advocates; America’s Voice Ohio; Cleveland Jobs With Justice; DreamActivist Ohio; Ethnic and Cultural Diversity Caucus (Dayton), Faith in Public Life Ohio, Forest Hill Church (Cleveland Heights); Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network; Immigration Working Group of Cleveland; IndivisibleCLE; InterReligious Task Force on Central America and Colombia; Lorain Ohio Immigrant Rights Association; Radial Church (Canton); Unidos Ohio; and Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland.
See also this powerful video about three Columbus-area mothers, all with different stories, who are working for a world in which parents aren’t separated from children due to state violence and destructive immigration and refugee policies.
