Ahead of Father’s Day, Senator Blumenthal (D-CT) joined Representatives Gutiérrez (D-IL), Gallego (D-AZ), and Polis (D-CO) and immigrant advocates to call on the Trump administration to end its inhumane policy of ripping apart families at the border.
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), said, “I am the son of an immigrant. My dad came to this country as a penniless refugee in 1935. He escaped persecution, he had not much more than the shirt on his back, he knew virtually no one, and he spoke no english. Under Donald Trump’s rules, he would have been sent back to Germany. This country gave my father the chance to succeed. Nobody loved America more than my dad. I often think how sad and ashamed he would be of the utterly inhumane and cruel practices that President Trump has imposed. I’m hoping that on this Father’s Day, Donald Trump and his administration think about what it means to be a dad.“
Representative Luis Gutiérrez (IL-04), said, “I’m guaranteed that at the end of the day I’m going back to my family, and I want that guarantee for other families. I cannot imagine the void and emptiness in my life if I were to be seperated from them. I can’t think of a more cruel action than to rip a child from the arms of their parents. It’s psychological torture. We are scarring children for the rest of their lives. It is not illegal to come to our border fleeing rape, torture, death at the hands of some of the most vile cartels and come to our border and say, ‘I’m seeking asylum.’ That’s not illegal. That is one of the greatest American traditions.”
Representative Ruben Gallego (AZ-07), said, “Trump’s policy of dehumanizing children and cruelly and unnecessarily separating families for political show is nothing short of evil. My son Michael is the center of my world. It hurts to be away from him while I’m doing my work here in DC, but I always look forward to spending time with him when I’m home in Arizona over the weekend. I can’t imagine the anguish that these parents experience when their children are ripped from their arms, and the abject fear and trauma these children are subjected to when they realize they have been taken away from their moms and dads. This isn’t who we are as a nation, and the Trump administration must be stopped.”
Representative Jared Polis (CO-02), said, “As the father of a three year and six-year old, on the eve of Father’s Day weekend, I stand ashamed by the actions of the government to separate children from their parents. A father is a father, migrant or not. Children shouldn’t be subject to inhuman and traumatizing conditions. They belong with their parents. That’s why I’m sponsoring a resolution to condemn the separation of children from their parents at the border. We can’t turn a blind eye and allow the Trump Administration to prey on vulnerable families. Families deserve to be together.”
Tom Jawetz, Vice President of Immigration Policy, Center for American Progress, said, “This Father’s Day, I am going to be thinking about Marco Antonio Muñoz, who died by suicide last month as a result of the Trump administration’s cruel and un-American policy of separating children from their parents at the border. It has to end. Marco held his child so tight that Border Patrol agents had to physically rip his 3-year-old son out of his arms when they separated them. On Sunday I will hold my own children extra tight for him.”
Frank Sharry, Executive Director, America’s Voice, said, “Sunday is Father’s Day, and as the father of two daughters, it’s with a heavy heart we talk what’s happening at the U.S.-Mexico border, in our name and with our tax dollars. When I see Central American fathers risking everything to protect their children, I think of what I would do as a father to protect my daughters. If they were facing the prospect of being targeted by gangs, forcibly recruited, raped, torture. Well, If my family was threatened, I would certainly do whatever possible to save them – including traveling a thousand miles to get to the U.S. and seek asylum. The separation of kids from their parents at our border is un-American and unacceptable. It’s time for the American people to rise up and tell this administration: no more, not in our name.”
