SLIDESHOW: HIAS Joins "Families Belong Together" Rallies
By Gabe Cahn, HIAS.org
Jun 15, 2018
The Trump Administration’s policies targeting refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants have been contentions since day one.
Still, the separation of families who are seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border is garnering as strong a backlash as any one measure implemented by this administration, perhaps with the exception of the first Muslim and refugee ban in January 2017.
The government’s “zero tolerance” policy at the border is simply not being tolerated by the American public.
On Thursday, June 14, Families Belong Together organized a wave of protests across the country to oppose the “cruel, inhumane and unjustified separation of children from their parents.”
In Brooklyn and Washington, D.C. HIAS staff joined the rallies to stand up for those searching for safety and speak out for a fair, humane asylum system.
Like today’s asylum seekers, many Jews came to the United States in search of safety, and the opportunity for a new start in a new land is a defining part of our story which calls us to welcome the stranger.
Earlier in the week, HIAS joined a national Jewish letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen signed 26 national organizations. The letter urged the cabinet officials to rescind this cruel policy and “uphold the values of family unity and justice on which our nation was built.”
And in Congress, the Senate is working to pass S.3036, a new bill that would prevent children from being taken from their parents at the border.
UPDATE: 40 senators now support our bill to bar children from being taken from their parents at the border. We’re continuing to ask Republican senators to join our bill. If you’re represented by a Republican senator, please ask them to cosponsor S.3036. #FamiliesBelongTogether
— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) June 14, 2018
