Help Stop Inhumane Abuse!

Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) was founded in 2004 to help elect progressives and to make a real difference organizing for progress. Remember to vote if you can today in Maryland, Colorado, New York, Oklahoma, Mississippi and South Carolina. We’ve endorsed Jamie Raskin and Roger Manno for Congress in Maryland.

Also, take action to stop horrendous oppression at the border and across our country as federal agents abuse migrants and suspected migrants in violation of the U.S. Constitution and any standard for human decency. We’re horrified at the ongoing oppression of migrants and asylum seekers. U.S. officials are tearing children and babies from their parents’ grasp, imprisoning children in cages, and carrying out other horrors of Trump’s “zero tolerance” policies that directly caused a humanitarian crisis on our southern border. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are a main engine of these abuses.

Click here to tell your Representative and Senators to vote to defund and abolish ICE, and to quickly pass the bipartisan Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. Also, to urge them to pressure Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen to resign for outrageously callous conduct and dishonest statements during this crisis.

Tell Congress To Protect Families

The DREAM Act will grant protections and legal status to certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

Reason.com reported ICE “was created in the panicked days after 9/11 to enhance national security. But its primary purpose has become hunting down and ejecting people whose main ‘crime’ often is that they can’t obtain a piece of paper from the government authorizing them to live and work in the United States.”

We must act quickly. Children are separated from their parents at the border and warehouses in tents or abandoned Wal-Mart buildings. ICE and other officials illegally reject viable reasons for asylum, in violation of U.S. obligations under treaties and international law. Click here to tell your Representative and Senators to vote to defund and abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and to quickly pass the bipartisan Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act.

Once children are separated from their parents, they are no longer part of a family unit, but are categorized as “unaccompanied minors.” Tent cities are being erected as overflow holding areas for children in the Texas heat. Members of Congress are being denied entry to these detention centers.

Former Department of Homeland Security Director and current Chief of Staff John Kelly calls the separation policy a “tough deterrent,” and says in an NPR interview, “The children will be taken care of—put into foster care or whatever.”

The reality is that adults may be detained for a short period of time, but remain separated from their children for months. Overwhelmed and underfunded, DHS and associated agencies have lost track of hundreds of migrant children in foster care … “or whatever.”

Attorney General Sessions has instituted this inhumane policy of “zero tolerance” and his underlings claim they are just following orders. Contrary to the Trump administration’s claims, there is no law mandating separation of families, and it is not illegal to approach the border and request asylum. Click here to tell your Representative and Senators to vote to defund and abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and to quickly pass the bipartisan DREAM Act.

We demand a legislative remedy to end the reprehensible practice of separating children from their parents at the border, warehousing refugees in substandard detention centers, and refusing to consider claims of asylum that stem from fear of violence or retribution. Click here to tell your Representative and Senators to vote to defund and abolish ICE, and to quickly pass the DREAM Act.

In solidarity,

Mike Hersh, for Donna, Mike F, Judy, Dan, Janis, Deb, Dr. Bill, Bryan, and Kim—your PDA National Team

P.S. If you vote in Maryland, Colorado, New York, Oklahoma, Mississippi and South Carolina remember to vote today. We don’t ask for dues. We rely on small donations from people like you. If you’ve donated before, now is the time to sign up to make automatic monthly contributions. If you’re already a sustainer, we appreciate your help! If you can, please consider setting up another sustainer donation. Click here to sign up for monthly sustainer donations. No spare change to help us make change? Then contact Mike Fox to join the phone team.

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