White House policy separating children from parents at border likened to‘government sanctioned child abuse’
NCBCP President among Civil Rights Leaders criticizing current Trump administration policy separating immigrant families as inhumane
From Lon Walls
June 19, 2018 (Washington, DC) – At a press conference on Capitol Hill today, Melanie Campbell, President and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation (NCBCP) and Convener of the Black Women’s Round-table (BWR), joined a number of other prominent civil rights leaders in criticizing the Trump Administration’s current policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the Mexican Border. The press conference, hosted by the National Action Network (NAN), featured NAN President and Founder, Rev. Al Sharpton; Vanita Gupta, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Janet Murguia, President and CEO of UnidosUS (formerly National Council of La Raza); National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial; Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; Kristen Clarke, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law; and Jonathan Greenblatt, National Director and CEO, Anti-Defamation League. Joining these civil rights groups to express their concerns were Representatives Darren Soto (D-FL), Chair of the Civil Rights Task Force for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).
Melanie Campbell’s impassioned remarks were as follows:
The unjust White House policy to separate 2,000 children from their parents at the Mexican Border, who are fleeing for their lives seeking asylum from violence and persecution in their home countries, is tantamount to “government sanctioned child abuse.” This Administration is using babies as pawns to build a wall on the Border and using “rule of law” as their excuse to commit these inhumane atrocities. Shame on President Trump and GOP Congressional leadership for choosing partisan gain over human rights and compassion for “the least of these God’s children” that are being traumatized and ripped apart from their mothers and fathers. What kind of nation are we becoming, if we continue to allow babies, little girls and boys, to be put in cages and left alone, un-nurtured, wailing and crying themselves to sleep at night? We must all speak up and challenge these immoral acts by our government. God is not pleased and voters of good conscience will remember this in November.
