NM sens. back bill to end border separation policy

ACLU sought injunction in February and expects a decision ‘very soon’

As more children are separated from their parents by immigration authorities, U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico co-sponsored a bill to protect those children, and immigrant advocacy groups called on the Trump administration to end the policy.

The outcry from immigrant and civil rights organizations has grown in response to a zerotolerance policy announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions last month.

Sessions said anyone crossing

the border illegally would face prosecution, but children are also being taken away if their parents present themselves to authorities at ports of entry seeking asylum.

“The little children, as you all know, are screaming and begging, ‘Please don’t take me away from my mommy and daddy,’ and they’re being hauled off and sent all across the country,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union during a news conference Wednesday in El Paso.

Gelernt was on the border to meet with one of the plaintiffs, a mother separated from her 14-year-old son last summer.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit in federal district court in California in February seeking an injunction to stop the separations. Months

before the official policy change, the practice started along the border in New Mexico and Texas as part of a pilot program to deter Central American immigrants.

“We are hoping the federal judge declares that the Trump administration family separation policy is unlawful, unconstitutional, and immediately orders the government to reunite these children who are all by themselves all over the country,” Gelernt said.

He said the ACLU expects a decision “very soon.”

Meanwhile, a group of Democratic U.S. senators — including Udall and Heinrich — have introduced the Humane Enforcement and Legal Protections (HELP) for Separated Children Act to address children left alone after their parents are detained by

immigration authorities.

“The lengths that the Trump Administration will go to incite fear and terror in immigrant communities is truly heartless,” Heinrich said in a statement announcing the bill. “We need to end the inhuman practice of family separation.”

The bill provides safeguards for children abandoned at school or home when their undocumented parents are detained.

“It is disheartening that we must pass legislation that allows parents to embrace their kids one last time, and that allows them to make calls and arrange for the care of their children, before being separated. Unfortunately, this is the reality of the Trump administration,” Udall said.

The Trump administration has

stepped up deportations across the U.S. at the same time it has increased border enforcement, including sending the National Guard to help the Border Patrol deal with a spike in illegal crossings.

According to government figures, in April alone, 50,000 people crossed the border illegally. Many were Central American families seeking asylum.

The Border Network for Human Rights works with families in El Paso and southern New Mexico, and demonstrated outside the county courthouse in El Paso Thursday night demanding an end to the separation of children from their parents.

Demonstrations are scheduled in more than 25 other cities across the country today.