Pax Christi USA is astonished, embarrassed, and deeply disturbed by the recent vile treatment of immigrants and the inhumane policies that have been put in place in an attempt to curb and to punish undocumented immigrants.
Actions by the current presidential administration include: Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) lured workers into captivity with donuts, a nursing child was separated from its mother, children who have been separated from parents are being held inhumanely away from their parents, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions will no longer grant asylum for victims of domestic abuse or gang violence.
The detention centers are concentration camps, separating children from their parents and keeping children indoors for 22 hours a day is torture, and rejecting asylum seekers is a death sentence.
Immigrants are human beings. Never is it acceptable to separate families and keep parents and children from knowing where the other is being detained. Also disconcerting are the references to Scripture to excuse the fact that the U.S. has currently lost its moral compass. This is not the America PCUSA believes in or wants, and it is almost difficult to believe this vile treatment is real. These news stories feel like pages out of the dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.
But it is real, and the human rights violations are continuing. Even the UN Commissioner on Human Rights has rebuked the United States for these policies. PCUSA members need to take strong action. It is time to protest, write Congress, write the president, stand outside the detention centers and local ICE offices, and demand that these affronts to humankind stop immediately.