LeGaL Strongly Condemns Trump’s Heartless Family Separation and Indefinite Detention Practices

LeGaL is appalled and outraged by the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S. border. All families belong together, and kids do not belong in jail.

Little is known about how the June 20th executive order purporting to end family separation will play out in practice. Also unclear is the fate of the 2,342 children who have already been separated from their parents under this barbaric policy. Many of them may never see their parents again.

Furthermore, Trump’s executive order continues the “zero-tolerance” policy and allows for the indefinite detention of families while parents are prosecuted and their immigration cases await resolution. This is unacceptable and dangerous.

According to reports, many asylum-seekers are being turned away at the border. These are individuals who are trying to escape persecution in their home countries. This is a form of legal immigration.

America is better than this.

Every single one of the children separated under this unspeakably cruel policy must be reunited with their parents. Until that point, LeGaL, and the LGBT legal community will continue to do everything we can to bring an end to this self-inflicted humanitarian crisis.

However this ends, this administration’s cruelty has already caused irreparable damage. In New York, we are all immigrants. We are not this.