ICE: Chilling separation policy

I write to condemn in the strongest language that I can summon the current ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) policy, conducted in the name of the American people, of separating parents and children at our borders. Families fleeing violence and poverty in their own countries are encountering new trauma: Children are being separated from their parents without warning, explanation, or any information or assurance of reunification and sent to facilities ill-equipped and ill-prepared to properly care for them.

This practice of torture is reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps, where children were ripped from the arms of their mothers and sent to the ovens; of our own sordid history of snatching black children from the arms of their mothers and sent to the auction block. What will be the next step if this extreme measure of deliberate cruelty itself does not work?

No valid argument exists to justify a practice that is morally repugnant, despicable and abhorrent. We are wounding our own souls. I call upon our elected representatives to publicly speak out against this practice and take immediate steps to push forward reasonable legislation to address our immigration crisis. I call upon every minister, priest and rabbi to preach from their pulpits against this policy of cruelty. I call upon every person of good will and conscience to write to their congressman and to the White House to demand an immediate stop to this brutal practice.

PAULA NEILS

Hauser