Washington, DC – Republican Senator Steve Daines of Montana offered an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act prohibiting the U.S. from making payments to families whose children were kidnapped or stolen by the United States Government, specifically as part of the previous President’s “zero tolerance” policy to deter asylum seekers from seeking asylum. This policy led to government agents ripping young children from the arms of their parents with no system to reunite them later.
America’s Voice today recommends a vote against the Daines amendment to all U.S. Senators.
The following is a statement by Douglas Rivlin, Director of Communication for America’s Voice.
“No policy of the previous President evoked such mass condemnation from the American public as the abduction of migrant children from their parents without a plan to care for them fully, nor a plan for tracking and returning said children to their parents. It was ill advised, illegal and immoral. It remains one of the most egregious moral stains on the character of this nation in our history. Families remain separated, children are lost in the U.S. to parents who were deported and the damage to individual children and families, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is permanent, incalculable and will never be fully rectified.
The hands of the federal government should not be tied by legislation to prevent the government from making financial restitution if so ordered by an American court of law or if doing so would justly settle litigation against the United States where the United States was clearly at fault. Republicans ought to respect the American legal system enough not to outlaw payments to victims in litigation precipitated by egregious and knowingly harmful acts by those in the highest offices of our government perpetrated on innocent children.
Vote no on the Daines amendment to the NDAA.”
