Administration to House Immigrant Children in Tent City

New York City—In response to reports that the Trump Administration will build a tent city in Texas for migrant children separated from their parents, Human Rights First’s Eleanor Acer issued the following statement:

It’s despicable that the Trump Administration is treating traumatized, vulnerable children like criminals, separating them from their families and detaining them in tents. Many of these children have been brought to this country to escape unspeakable violence, and rather than offer them protection this administration is ripping them away from the only family they’ve ever known, prosecuting their parents, and holding them in inhumane conditions. The systemic dismantling of the asylum and refugee systems will be this administration’s most damaging legacy. This is not what America stands for.

The Trump Administration must stop using the criminal justice system, family separation, and mass detention to address families fleeing persecution and seeking refuge in the United States.  Congress created civil immigration and asylum processes to handle these cases.