| Dear Katy, If you thought DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, the architect of baby jails, was cruel, wait until you hear about her potential replacement. Donald Trump just pushed Nielsen out of DHS because she refused to reinstate his horrific family separation policy.1 Now, Trump is trying to replace her with the man who led Customs and Border Patrol in tear gassing unarmed immigrant families, including infants in diapers, at the border.2 We don't know yet if Trump will push to replace Nielsen with Kevin McAleenan as acting head or permanent head of the department. What we do know is that whoever Trump picks to lead DHS will be more extreme than Nielsen and a champion of Stephen Miller's white nationalist agenda. The Senate can block Trump's DHS takeover by using its power to set the standards for Nielsen's replacement. We must make sure that supporting family separation is grounds for immediate disqualification. Tell the Senate: Vote down any DHS nominee who supports family separation. Click here to sign the petition. It is appalling that a person who carried out and publicly defended state-sanctioned violence against immigrants and refugees is still not cruel enough to lead DHS according to Trump's fascist standards. Trump's top pick to replace Nielsen could push the United States over the cliff of cruelty. As head of Customs and Border Patrol, Kevin McAleenan unleashed his agents to launch tear gas attacks on unarmed refugees at the border and continued to manipulate and lie to the public about the deaths of children in CBP custody. 3 McAleenan is also a supporter of reinstating family separation through a cruel "binary choice" policy, which would force immigrants and refugees to choose between being jailed together with their children or separately.4 News just broke that acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security Claire Grady, who was next in line to serve as acting head of DHS, resigned.5 This conveniently clears a path for Trump to immediately hand McAleenan temporary control of DHS. Immigrants will pay the price if we allow McAleenan or anyone like him to lead the department permanently. Tell the Senate: Vote down any DHS nominee who supports family separation. Click here to sign the petition. When images and videos began to emerge from detention facilities where immigration agents held stolen children, CREDO members and allies mobilized en masse and forced the Trump regime to end its family separation policy. We won that battle, but the fight is far from over. The family separation crisis never really ended. Thousands of immigrant children are still in detention. It could take up to two years for the government to identify and reunite the families it tore apart.6 The last thing this country needs is another Trump official who will make this crisis even worse. Because of our relentless activism, Kirstjen Nielsen will never be able to escape accountability for carrying out one of the cruelest policies in modern American history. Now we need to unleash the same grassroots pressure to make sure the Senate blocks any Trump nominee who thinks Nielsen didn't go far enough. Tell the Senate: Vote down any DHS nominee who supports family separation. Click the link below to sign the petition. https://act.credoaction.com/sign/senate-dhs-end-family-separation?t=10&akid=32226%2E12967895%2EsbUjvs Thanks for speaking out, Nicole Regalado, Campaign Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets Add your name: References: - Julia Ainsley and Geoff Bennett, "Trump's support of renewed child separation policy led to collision with Nielsen," NBC, April 8, 2019.
- Nick Miroff, "Top U.S. border official defends use of tear gas, says walls are 'important tool,'" The Washington Post, Dec. 11, 2018.
- Daniel Altschuler and Natalia Aristizabal, "Claudia Gómez González Wasn't Killed by a Rogue Border Agent—She Was Killed by a Rogue Agency," The Nation, May 29, 2018.
- Michael D. Shear, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Maggie Haberman, "Trump Signals Even Fiercer Immigration Agenda, With a Possible Return of Family Separations," The New York Times, April 8, 2019.
- Kate Sullivan, "Acting No. 2 at Homeland Security latest to leave department," CNN, April 9, 2019.
- Julia Jacobs, "U.S. Says It Could Take 2 Years to Identify Up to Thousands of Separated Immigrant Families," The New York Times, April 6, 2019.
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