06.20.2018

NEW YORK, NY -- In response to a new Executive Order from the Trump administration that continues to perpetuate the detention of immigrant families, the Center for Popular Democracy released the following statement from Co-Executive Director Ana Maria Archila:

“This Executive Order is a ploy to distract the public from the real issue at the heart of Trump’s immigration agenda: the criminalization of families who are seeking nothing more than safety and a better future for their children.

We are seeing the horror of that agenda unfold in real time. Babies torn from their mothers while they’re breastfeeding. Detention centers where humans sleep on the floor and spend their days in cages. Thousands upon thousands of children and parents who may never be reunited.

The American people have now seen what immigration enforcement looks and sounds like. We can no longer turn away. We need to demand not just an end to family separation, but an end to the brutal and inhumane treatment of immigrant families. We need to eliminate funding for ICE and Customs and Border Protection, two out-of-control agencies whose brutality is growing by the day.    

Trump has caved to public outrage by signing an executive order that will simply keep entire families in cages. But we believe that families belong together in communities, not in cages.

We must recommit ourselves to the values we as a nation hold dear, and demand an immigration system that protects families and upholds the dignity of human life. Until then, CPD and our network of community organizations will continue to demand that we abolish ICE and CBP once and for all.”

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Media Contact:

Asya Pikovsky, apikovsky@populardemocracy.org, 207-522-2442