Dear Katy, Reports of stomach-churning child abuse in detention centers should compel any lawmaker with a conscience to stop Donald Trump's xenophobic attacks, but Republican extremist Sen. Ron Johnson just introduced legislation that would push the United States over the cliff of cruelty.1 The FAMILIES Act would add more family prisons to Trump's deportation and mass incarceration machine and worsen the crisis of corruption and abuse at the border. Democrats and Republicans of good conscience need to do everything they can to block this bill. Tell Congress: No more Trump internment camps. Block legislation that would expand family prisons. Click here to sign the petition. Sen. Johnson introduced this cruel bill just as news broke that the Trump administration lost track of nearly 1,500 immigrant children it placed in detention facilities and foster care this year.2 This latest horrifying development is yet another example of how Trump's extreme anti-immigrant policies are made worse by his administration's incompetence. The ineptitude of Trump's ICE, CBP and DOJ was on full display this week. At a Senate hearing on Trump's latest proposal to nullify the Flores decree, a settlement that puts time limits on imprisoning children, Trump officials dodged fundamental questions and failed to defend the administration's push to expand family and child detention. ICE officials said that they didn't even bother to read warnings from agency doctors about the trauma detention inflicts on children.3 ICE's chief of arrests and deportations compared family prisons to "summer camps," again.4 Jeff Sessions' acting deputy assistant attorney general refused to comment on whether child abuse at detention centers would count as federal crime.5 These officials are either willfully ignorant Trump loyalists or completely incompetent. Either way, Congress should be putting checks on ICE and CBP, not empowering them to do more harm. Sen. Johnson's bill would allow Trump and Republicans to build more family prisons, make family detention mandatory and waive the polygraph requirement for many border patrol applicants, opening the door for more corruption and abuse. We must join together now to keep the pressure on Congress and demand that it reject any bill that would give Trump the power to imprison more immigrant families indefinitely. Will you add your name now? Tell Congress: No more Trump internment camps. Block legislation that would expand family prisons. Click the link below to sign the petition. https://act.credoaction.com/sign/stop_family_detention?t=7&akid=30137%2E12967895%2Esm_1is Thanks for standing up for families, Nicole Regalado, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets Add your name: References: - Sen. Ron Johnson, "S.3478," introduced Sept. 18, 2018.
- Ron Nixon, "U.S. Loses Track of Another 1,500 Migrant Children, Investigators Find," The New York Times, Sept. 18, 2018.
- Amanda Michelle Gomez, "Trump officials claim they are unaware of health risks associated with child detention," ThinkProgress, Sept. 18, 2018.
- Tal Kopan, "ICE official stands by comparing detention centers to 'summer camp,' won't say if he'd send his kids to one," CNN, Sept. 18, 2018.
- Ibid.
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