#WelcomeWithDignity Campaign Decries Attacks on Immigrant Families and Children
Washington, D.C. – #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign strongly denounces recent actions by the Trump administration that threaten the freedom and safety of immigrant families and sow terror in our communities. Last week, ICE and other law enforcement agencies carried out violent, militarized raids in Northern Virginia and other parts of the country. Reports also emerged that the Trump administration has resumed the shameful practice of detaining immigrant families, reopening two Texas facilities notorious for abuse and negligence.
Immigration raids escalate: Under the directive of the Trump administration, ICE and its law enforcement collaborators are targeting community members in their homes, schools, daycares, places of worship, healthcare facilities, workplaces. Last week, ICE carried out violent raids in Northern Virginia, with agents in military gear carrying AK-47s reportedly patrolling immigrant neighborhoods and breaking down the doors of families’ homes. Many of these neighborhoods targeted are home to Indigenous Peoples from Central and South America and diverse communities from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, among others who have escaped genocide and armed conflict, and have sought safety in the United States along with their families. It is shameful that the United States is wielding such repressive, violent tactics against families who found refuge from violence here.
Everyone deserves to feel safe in their homes, schools, and communities. No one should feel fear when dropping their children off at school, shopping for groceries, attending religious services, or going to work. ICE’s cruel tactics are designed to inflict fear and trauma on our communities. Heavily militarized immigration raids have profound long-term mental health consequences for immigrant families, especially children.
Family detention resumes: The consequences of family detention have been well-documented by former detention staff, medical experts, human rights investigators, and ICE’s own advisory committee, with reports of inadequate medical and mental healthcare, negligence, and rampant abuse. Immigration detention is always harmful, and detaining children is particularly dangerous. Jailing children in immigration detention facilities has caused life-long health harm, including high levels of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and developmental delays.
Families deserve to be together and safe, and should be able to navigate their immigration cases with the support of their communities, in freedom. The #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign calls on our leaders to reject policies that are designed to terrorize our communities and deprive them of their basic rights and freedoms, and to instead pursue solutions that enable all of our families to thrive, no matter where they are from or how they came to this country.
“With the revival of family detention and escalation of ICE raids, the Trump administration is waging an all-out assault on immigrant families and children,” said Kate Jastram, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS). “These cruel tactics sow fear in our communities and inflict lasting trauma on families and children, who are particularly vulnerable to harm. Refugee and immigrant families should be able to pursue legal status in freedom, with the support of their communities and loved ones. They should never be locked up, separated, or punished for seeking safety.”
“Families deserve to live and grow together– in freedom and safety. The Trump Administration, however, plans to resume the shameful practice of family detention, imprisoning parents and their children in inhumane conditions that cause profound, long-lasting psychological and physical harm, said Robyn Barnard, Senior Director, Refugee Advocacy at Human Rights First. “The egregious conditions in family detention are well-documented: from inadequate medical and mental healthcare, abuse, a lack of due process, and inappropriate disciplinary tactics, such as threats to separate families. Immigration detention is an affront to basic values that we all hold dear: dignity, due process, and freedom.”
“No matter where we come from, we would do anything to protect our families and keep them safe. The Trump administration’s plan to resume family detention deprives people seeking safety of their freedom and violates their fundamental rights. The Trump administration’s cruel agenda of detention, deportation, and family separation, is an attack on our families, our communities, and our values. Detention, deportation, and family separation are profoundly harmful, traumatic experiences for anyone–even more so for children, who suffer from long-term repercussions of inhumane conditions in family detention and ICE raids in their communities. We must leave these policies in the past, where they belong and instead uplift policies that keep us all safe and allow all our communities to thrive,” said Marie-Hélène Rousseau, Communications Strategist with the #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign.
“Family detention is a cruel and inhumane policy that punishes children and families simply for seeking safety. Locking up children in prison-like facilities inflicts lasting trauma and violates basic human rights. Seeking asylum is not a crime, and families fleeing danger should be met with compassion, not incarceration,” said Sierra Kraft, Executive Director of Immigrant Children Advocates’ Relief Effort (ICARE). “We condemn this renewed attack on immigrant families and call on the administration to immediately end the use of family detention. ICARE will continue fighting for a just and humane immigration system that protects the rights and dignity of all children.”
“Families deserve to be welcomed, not jailed, as they navigate the immigration system. Family detention is costly, inefficient, and shameful, and it inflicts irreparable harm on children and their parents. ImmDef calls upon all elected officials and the American people to unequivocally reject any form of family detention,” said Margaret Cargioli, Directing Attorney, Policy & Advocacy, at Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). “All families deserve to seek safety, family reunification, and the American dream within supportive communities where they can easily access services, meet their children’s developmental needs, and receive due process without being subjected to the inhumane conditions of immigration prisons.”
“It is enraging to see the Trump administration reinstate family detention, a policy of jailing immigrant parents with their children – including babies. Detention is harmful and traumatic for everyone, but especially children. Families should be able to navigate their immigration cases in community with support services provided and facilitated by local community based groups – never Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an enforcement agency that is plagued by egregiously poor conditions and a culture of violence. Taking away a child’s freedom and deliberately putting them in these conditions is unconscionable, as is denying a parent their most fundamental role of providing their child with a loving and nurturing environment. Family detention, like all immigration detention, is inhumane, unjust, and unnecessary. Everyone, certainly children and their parents, deserves to freely and safely move for opportunity and stability,” said Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director of Detention Watch Network.
“Family detention is a cruel and inhumane policy that inflicts irreparable harm on children and their parents, violating both U.S. and international human rights law. Medical experts, including those within the Department of Homeland Security, have long warned that even short stays in detention centers lead to severe physical and mental health consequences, particularly for children and survivors of domestic and sexual violence,” said Archi Pyati, CEO of the Tahirih Justice Center. “Years ago, I met with detained mothers – survivors of trauma seeking safety from persecution – who were struggling to protect their children from abuse and degradation in detention. Tahirih and our allies successfully fought for safer, more humane, and less costly alternatives before and family detention was stopped. We will continue this fight until such practices are ended once and for all. Our government must never warehouse families.”
“The level of discrimination, racial profiling, human and civil rights violations our immigrant and refugee communities are facing on a daily basis is unlike anything I have witnessed since I came to this country in the 1990s,” said Lorena Brady, Policy and Program Manager with the International Mayan League. “We are law-abiding community members that honor the Indigenous lands that have welcomed us; we are mothers, human rights defenders, teachers, and community leaders. The ICE raids throughout Northern Virginia expose the Trump administration’s agenda to traumatize our families and inflict irreparable harm; these are not operations to keep our communities safe. I can’t even drop my child off at daycare without encountering tactical vehicles and heavily armed agents in my neighborhood. Indigenous Peoples are consistently at higher risk of family separation, intimidation, and violations to due process rights simple for being Indigenous. The return of family detention will undoubtedly result in more deaths, a stark reminder of the horrific deaths of Maya children and youth under Trump 1.0. But we are still here, defending our rights, protecting the most vulnerable and pushing our local officials to vehemently denounce and oppose these arbitrary and inhumane actions.”
“Unitarian Universalists condemned family detentions during the first Trump administration, and we do so again now. It was a moral failure then, and the administration’s recent moves to resume family detentions and reopen facilities for such confinements is now a fresh stain upon our national character,” stated Pablo DeJesús, Executive Director of Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice. “We ask Congress to keep families together. We remind members that detention of families is not acceptable to our faith tradition. We are deeply troubled with how our country is treating families seeking refuge and a better life, putting innocent children at risk of long-term physical and emotional consequences. The fear, trauma, and disruption these raids create for our neighbors and their kids, even if no one is detained, can not be overstated. As a result, people are staying away from jobs, school, doctors, and houses of worship. Immigrants are members of our families and social networks. They are integral to our communities and play numerous vital roles in our lives. If Congress funds the proposed mass deportation program, families will suffer, kids will be harmed, perhaps even abandoned, and our national and local well-being will be impaired.”
“As Franciscans, we are deeply troubled by the recent immigration actions that prioritize division over compassion. Our faith calls us to welcome the stranger and protect the dignity of all human beings, regardless of their origin. We urge the administration to remember that immigrants are our brothers and sisters in Christ, often fleeing dire circumstances, and deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. Let us choose a path that secures our borders while also honoring the inherent worth of every person who seeks refuge in our country.” said Eileen DeGuire, Legislative Director at the Franciscan Action Network
“The Trump administration has once again sanctioned policies that will rip whole families from their communities and put them in cages,” said Joan F. Neal, NETWORK Interim Executive Director. “This is what the world witnessed during the first Trump administration, provoking such an outcry that the Administration was forced to stop the practice. It is beyond any basic standard of human decency. This policy, coupled with the psychological terror of increased raids around the country, has our immigrant families riddled with fear. People, regardless of status, are being racially profiled and detained. These policies expose the deep level of depravity and cruelty which is a hallmark of any mass deportation effort. Families belong together to live in safety and dignity. That is a fundamental tenet of Jesus’ ministry and a bedrock of Catholic Social tradition. The family is the foundation of our society and essential for the growth and development of our precious children. We condemn these measures in the strongest terms and demand the Trump administration end them now.”
“Do not be misled by the law and order narrative of the Trump administration; it is just an excuse to conceal his cruel anti-immigrant agenda, mass deportation plan, and violations of both U.S. and international human rights law,” said Lariza Dugan Cuarda, Executive Director of the Central American Resource Center of Northern California – CARECEN SF. “We denounce and warn against last week’s actions by the U.S. government to further militarize ICE raids and re-open the inhumane detention centers designed for families. Children deserve to be protected and their well-being cared for. By bringing back the cruel policy to detain families with children, the government is not only failing to protect but is blatantly harming children. What is more, these children have survived attempts on their lives, kidnapping, and other extreme harms and need trauma-informed services like therapy and a living environment free from armed guards and locked gates. The announcement of the Trump administration’s reinstatement of family detention goes against our core values as a nation. Everyone has the right to freedom and should be treated with dignity, no matter where they come from. Our communities deserve peace; ICE’s intimidation with military weapons does not make neighborhoods safer. We must reject the proposed budget increases for ICE and immigration detention, as we have already seen the insecurity and harm their plans produce.”
“Resuming the practice of detaining children and families is wrong, cruel, and inhumane” said Conchita Cruz, Co-Executive Director at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP). “Ten years ago, ASAP began as an all-volunteer effort to support asylum-seeking mothers forced to fight their immigration cases while in detention at the Dilley Detention Center. ASAP remains committed to fighting alongside our members — including asylum-seeking mothers — to protect their right to seek asylum and live in safety in the U.S.”
“Families belong in our communities, our schools, our houses of worship—not in immigration detention,” said Hannah Flamm, Interim Senior Director of Policy at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP). “In this moment of incessant assaults on so many basic immigrant rights, it is critical to not lose sight of the harms these cruel and unlawful attacks will inflict on our communities.”