Last year the Child Welfare League of America participated in a Capitol Hill press conference with congressional members, including Congressperson Karen Bass (D-CA) denouncing the Administration’s consideration of a policy that would split up immigrant families as an anti-immigration enforcement tool. A report by the Washington Post last month indicates that the Administration is preparing to use of military bases to hold immigrant children who are either unaccompanied minors or are being split apart from their families. Last month White House Chief of Staff John Kelley, gave an interview that reinforced the Administration’s policy saying that immigrants “they are not bad people, .they are also not people that would easily assimilate into the United States input our modern society…” and went on to defend the separation of children from their parents telling National Public Radio (NPR), “The children will be taken care of—put into foster care or whatever.”

This year CWLA has signed onto a group letter with at least 200 national and state non-immigration groups to emphasize how the issue affects families. The groups call on the Administration to stop its policy of separating children from their families. The Young Center for Immigration Children’s Rights is gathering signatures from child welfare, juvenile justice, and child development organizations in every state. The letter calls on the Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen, “to abandon current policies and practices that systematically separate children from their families absent evidence that a specific parent poses a threat to the safety and well-being of his or her child”

Signatures must be submitted by Monday June 4th at 5pm Eastern, and can be added at this link.