Today, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and House Homeland Security Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), released the following joint statement on President  Donald Trump’s family separation executive order:

“Donald Trump created a humanitarian crisis when he mandated that children would be ripped from their parents’ arms in order to deter immigration.  Trump is now trying to convince the American people that mandating indefinite detention of families solves the family separation crisis he created. Throwing young children into the same cages and cells with their parents trades one injustice for another. 

“We are troubled that amid all the fanfare of Donald Trump’s televised signing ceremony there was not a single mention of  how the more than 2000 children will be reunited with their families.  Children are currently being held in facilities that are often at opposite ends of the country from their parents, and there appears to be no system for reuniting these families.  There have already been reports of parents who have been deported with their young children left behind in some unknown detention facility.  Children face serious trauma from family separation and also from long-term detention.

“Parents and children who have been traumatized by the mean-spirited and ill-conceived family separation policy should be reunited and all care should be taken to ensure that these families receive extensive mental health services.  We must do all we can to remedy the pain and suffering of thousands of parents and children caused by this Administration’s political stunt.”

###