In Solidarity With Immigrants: Families Belong Together
June is Immigrant Heritage Month — which should be a celebration of the diversity and contributions that immigrants add to this country every day. But we are saddened and outraged that, instead, the Trump-Pence administration has used disgusting family separation tactics (and now, family detention) at the U.S.-Mexico border toward families seeking asylum.
Make no mistake: The xenophobia and racism we are seeing today is the same xenophobia and racism that has, throughout our history, been used as a tool against communities of color.
From slavery to Native American “boarding schools” to Japanese internment camps, separating families and interfering with the health and welfare of children of color have long been tactics of the U.S. government in the systematic oppression of communities of color.
Today, that violent legacy continues with the separation of immigrant children from their families and family detention. President Trump’s executive order to detain entire families is not the solution to the crisis he created — it is a jail sentence.
Children belong with their families, but they also belong in safe and healthy environments, not in cages alongside their parents and family members. Not to mention being separated from one’s family is extremely traumatic to children’s health and well-being.
All people deserve the right to raise their children in a healthy and safe environment without being targeted by aggressive immigration tactics and being forced to live in constant fear.
As a leading provider of reproductive health care and an ally to the reproductive justice movement, Planned Parenthood stands with immigrants and will continue to be a vocal advocate alongside our immigration partners in the fight to end these atrocities.
We will not stand by and allow immigrant and refugee families to be stripped of their health and rights, or be separated from or detained with their families. We are committed to defending the rights of immigrants, refugees, and their families to safely access health care and protect them from institutionalized abuse, harassment, and discrimination.
Reproductive health care is a basic human right that everyone deserves regardless of who you are or where you come from or what your immigration status is. That’s what we mean when we say immigrant rights are a reproductive justice issue.
Are you as outraged as we are? Join us on June 30 at rallies across the country.
We need you to help demand that President Trump and his administration keep families together and end practices that criminalize immigrant communities. Find an event near you.
Want to do more? Here are three more ways to take action.
1. Make a donation to any of these organizations that are leading this work on the ground and nationally:
2. Call your senators now and tell them to co-sponsor legislation to end family separation and family detention.
3. Sign and circulate a petition from:
