Photo by Joseph Yaroch, used by permission of the Center for Biological Diversity.
The recent atrocities on the border are a humanitarian crisis -- one that anyone who cares about the environment and people can’t remain silent about. Between forcible separation of children from their parents, inhumane living conditions in border detention centers, and attempts to amp up dangerous and expensive militarization of the borderlands, the Trump administration has shown itself to be shameless.
Last week, the United Nations Human Rights Council said the act of separating children from their families is a human rights violation. It’s no coincidence that President Trump moved to withdraw the U.S. from the agency just days later. At the same time, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the administration wouldn’t have to separate families or make “horrific choices” if we built a border wall and passed a backward immigration policy. And yesterday, in a knee-jerk reaction, Trump said he’d “stop separating families” but wouldn’t change his inhumane “zero tolerance” policies.
Building destructive border infrastructure and increased militarization should not be requirements for protecting human rights. We can choose to protect families and stop wasting taxpayer dollars on a boondoggle border wall that destroys communities and habitat. Unfortunately, the Republican congressional leadership is doing the bidding of this administration by proposing racist and ineffective immigration bills. We cannot allow any of this proposed legislation to move through.
Photo: Krista Schyler, used with permission
Building walls and physical barriers, in addition to cruel treatment of immigrants such as detention, deportation, and stripping of protected status, is unnecessary and would provide no national security benefit. The Sierra Club stands with borderlands communities and immigrant families in advocating for the following:
- Congress should allocate no money -- zero dollars to build barriers or militarize our borderlands. The human and environmental costs of the border wall and increased militarization are immense, causing unnecessary deaths, dividing border communities, and damaging critical wildlife habitat.
- Congress must end family separation
- Congress must pass a Clean Dream Act that protects the status of DACA recipients without funding for increased border militarization nor funding for Trump’s racist and damaging wall. Any legislation must be free from this administration’s attacks on immigration policies that support family unity and immigration from diverse countries. Congress must also preserve temporary protected status for those seeking refuge in the United States.
- There must be a viable pathway to citizenship for American immigrants.
The Sierra Club will oppose every attempt by Congress and this administration to militarize our border, tear apart communities and families, and end protections for immigrants.