Rhode Island’s Congressional delegation is responding to President Donald Trump’s decision to walk back a policy which separates families crossing illegally over the border.
The decision comes after weeks of pressure from Democratic and Republican lawmakers, as well as vocal activists across the country. The executive order, signed Wednesday, aims to end the physical separation of children from family members.
It would not change the “zero-tolerance” policy, which prosecutes adults crossing. But the order also seeks to hold families in detention as they await immigration or criminal proceedings, possibly exceeding the 20-day limit set by a court ruling.
Representative David Cicilline said the President’s order falls far short of a solution.
“This is pathetic,” Cicilline said in a statement. “Apparently the President is fine to keep immigrant families together as long as he can keep them behind bars indefinitely.”
Cicilline spent about 24 hours at the Texas border earlier this week. There, he visited detention centers where adults and children who entered the country illegally are being held.
Cicilline met with about 10 detained women seeking asylum “all of whom had very serious claims of threats of violence,” he said. “They were victims of gang violence or domestic abuse. And whose children were separated from them. And each woman as they began to tell their story, sobbed uncontrollably, I mean they couldn’t even get through the stories.”
Cicilline also visited a detention center for children, which he said was overcrowded due to an influx after the policy change.
“It was a facility that originally had about 300 kids in it, now has 1,500 children, so it’s very, very packed,” Cicilline said. “Most importantly, there are kids there who also have been removed from their parents, are in custody, and whose parents have legitimate asylum claims.”
Senator Jack Reed was one of a number of Democrats who co-sponsored legislation earlier this month, seeking an end to the policy.
“Americans don’t want to see innocent children treated this way and they made that very clear,” Reed said in a statement. “But President Trump’s latest policy shift is still costly and ineffective.”
Senator Whitehouse echoed Reed’s concerns.
“We need to ensure that family detention, as called for by this executive order, abides by the law and child welfare standards, and that separated children are reunited with their parents,” Whitehouse said in a statement.
Whitehouse referred to the continuing question of reuniting the more than 2,000 children who have already been separated from family members since the policy change.
