Immigration

Impending Raids Are an Assault on Our Immigrant Families

July 12, 2019 | National

We hate that we need to say this again, but we’ll say it again: We are horrified by and condemn the Trump administration’s imminent plans to conduct mass deportation roundups of immigrant families, which will do real and lasting harm to countless children.

The threat of mass raids are the latest in this administration’s sweeping, government-wide attack on immigrant families. This is a reckless endangerment of children and of our very American values. Children suffer when they witness a parent’s arrest. They hurt when a parent is detained or deported and the household must struggle to make ends meet without their income. And children feel the consequences when schools, camps, child care and places of worship are upended by enforcement actions in the community.

We remind President Trump and our leaders in Congress that it is our moral duty to protect and defend all children, regardless of where they come from or the color of their skin. We urge state and local officials to continue speaking out and equipping their communities with the resources they need to prepare for the possibility of the raid.

CLASP has rounded-up Rapid Response, Know Your Rights, Family Emergency Preparation and Provider Preparation materials here. The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has created a landing page of resources here, and Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) has published a toolkit here.