They died on our watch:
Six young lives snuffed out. Six immigrant children, dead on our watch.
The latest: a 10-year-old girl from El Salvador died in U.S. custody last year. It was unreported until now.
The heart of this shame, this national tragedy: Donald Trump's cruel immigration policies and the child prison camps run in our name.
I visited a camp in Homestead, Florida, earlier this year. It was chilling and part of a system that stems from the administration’s strategy of criminalizing flight from oppression.
We should be doing everything we can to get these children back into loving homes. Not locking them up in systems that can't adequately care for them.
Team Trump needs to quit treating migrants as criminals, quit trying to inflict trauma on children as a strategy of deterrence, and ensure that every child with an asylum claim is treated in a dignified and decent manner while they await their asylum hearing.
How many more children will suffer? How many more have died that we don't know about? These questions keep me up at night, and should be at the heart of a national debate.
Sign my petition: tell Congress to shut down the Homestead child prison camp immediately.
Jeff
