My first child turns five months old next week. I hold him tighter as I watch families being detained, separated, and lost to each other on the U.S. border. It is monstrous to separate children from parents who have brought them to this country with the dream of a better life. Keeping families together while locked in cages is wholly insufficient, and no less horrific.
And yet every day, families are being locked up and torn from each other--not just on the border, and not just by Donald Trump. Immigrant families separated by ICE raids. Women on public assistance who live in fear of having their kids taken away. Young people shot, surveilled, and incarcerated in neighborhoods ravaged by public disinvestment.
At United Working Families, we're fighting against deportations, criminalization, and displacement in every way we can. We believe in and are working towards a world in which government protects the dignity of all people, not the wealth of the richest few.
We're taking action in the following ways. I hope you'll join us.
1. Call your elected officials. Demand that they abolish ICE, force Jeff Sessions out, end mass trials, and investigate and hold DHS accountable for the thousands of children separated from their families. Look up the contact information for your representatives in Congress here.
2. Make a donation. If you are able to support work on the border, we suggest Puente, a grassroots migrant justice organization based in Phoenix, AZ. Thank you to our sisters and brothers at Mijente for the recommendation.
3. Sign up to take action. Actions are being planned at the border and locally in Chicago and Illinois in the coming days and weeks. Our young Latinx champions from the 2018 primaries--Alma Anaya, Delia Ramirez, and Aaron Ortiz--are planning to be there. Sign up to join us and we'll be in touch.
The struggle continues. I believe that we will win.
In Solidarity,
Emma Tai
Executive Director
