Thousands of immigrant children have been separated from their families as a result of a Trump-administration policy, according to news reports. They are being held in sites across the country, including one in Homestead, Fla. (It is not known if the children being kept there crossed the border alone or have been separated from their parents.)
More than 2,000 faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States are protesting the separation of immigrant children from their parents in an open letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The letter takes a stand against President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, under which thousands of children have been separated from their parents in recent months and are being housed in shelters and tent cities near the U.S.-Mexico border.
Signatories call the practice “an extreme human-rights breach.”
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Thousands of immigrant children have been separated from their families as a result of a Trump-administration policy, according to news reports. They are being held in sites across the country, including one in Homestead, Fla. (It is not known if the children being kept there crossed the border alone or have been separated from their parents.)
More than 2,000 faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States are protesting the separation of immigrant children from their parents in an open letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The letter takes a stand against President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, under which thousands of children have been separated from their parents in recent months and are being housed in shelters and tent cities near the U.S.-Mexico border.
Signatories call the practice “an extreme human-rights breach.”
The faculty members write that the policies also violate due-process rights and the right to representation for those accused of crimes. The authors express concern that the children affected — more than 11,000 of them in shelters in 17 states, according to The New York Times — could suffer physical and emotional abuse.
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The letter writers cite scholarship in pediatrics and psychiatry finding that such trauma could carry on for the rest of the children’s lives.
The focus on the potential trauma that the children could face echoes a written statement by Ana Mari Cauce, president of the University of Washington, against the policy.
“The damage for children is especially acute and can interfere not only with mental health and emotional development, but with brain development itself,” Cauce wrote. “The fact that American tax dollars are being used to knowingly inflict lifelong trauma on children is a stain on our national character.”
The faculty letter closes by calling family separation “an outright attack upon youth within Trump’s war upon immigrants and people of color” that “has eerie echoes in shameful histories of state dictatorship, ethnocide, and genocide that have since been proven morally reprehensible and illegal under international and national human rights.”
“We demand that children stop being used as political pawns,” the letter says. “To punish these children is tantamount to government-sanctioned child abuse.”
Megan Zahneis, a senior reporter for The Chronicle, writes about research universities and workplace issues. Follow her on Twitter @meganzahneis, or email her at megan.zahneis@chronicle.com.
