If I was forced to say one nice thing about President Trump it’s that he is incredibly talented at gaslighting an entire nation. Put in on your resume, Donny! But honey, don’t piss on my leg and call it rain. To catch you up to speed, over the past few months migrants have fled to our country, as they’ve since the beginning of time. They’re doing this to escape their own homelands for numerous reasons, including gang terror, governmental terror, other reasons big enough to risk the safety of one’s family. Like to make it very clear, people don’t hop the border where there are armed guards because they’re bored. They have legit reasons. Anyways, once they got into the country, families were split up from their children for *checks notes* literally no reason.
Since news broke of the low-level Nazi shit that was going on at our border, Americans used their national past time, outrage, for good and were like this truly will not fly. The Trump admin eventually listened, sort of. Yesterday (after a full week of blaming Democrats and saying “only Congress” could solve the problem) Trump signed an executive order that put a stop to tearing apart families. If you’re like “hooray, that’s good news!” slow your roll a bit because the rides about to get bumpy.
So What Does The Executive Order Do?
The executive order will stop separating children from their families, but it’s not like he is reuniting them with a big dinner at Olive Garden. He’s just putting them in one big family friendly detention center while the parents are prosecuted. (So kids are with their parents, but still in cages, just to be clear.)
The EO, which is called the “Affording Congress an Opportunity to Address Family Separation” because Trump literally can’t resist a good subtweet, directs Congress to find a solution to our country’s immigration problems ASAP. If they don’t, we’ll run into even more problems because keeping children in jail for more than 20 days violates the 1997 ruling in Flores v. Reno. Basically, that ruling says kids can’t be kept in detention facilities for too long, but because the Trump Administration has a policy of 100% prosecution of anyone who enters the country illegally, this means that they have to figure out how to both comply with the ruling, and keep putting all adult illegal immigrants in jail. We call this, #TrumpProbs.
What About The Kids Who Were Already Separated?
Okay, so the real true horror is that there is already 2,000 kids separated from their parents and there is no system in order to reunite them. The detained children have been sent all over the damn country so it’s not like there’s one place the parents can go to play marco polo and find their baby. Because the forced separation was so quick, there was very little paperwork done to even know whose kid is who. Technically a crazed psychopath can walk into one of these centers and be like “that baby there is my baby!” and point at a random baby. And guess what, babies can’t fucking talk so there isn’t like anyone who is going to doubt the crazed psychopath.
For those kids who are thankfully reunited with their families, the damage is already sort of done. Like the trauma of being kept in cages without their parents leaves an emotional scar. It wasn’t a bad nightmare they can simply be comforted by. In the words of JoJo, Trump’s executive order was “just a little too late.” It also simply does not address these children at all. It’s almost like, and this is me going out on a sturdy and true limb, this administration doesn’t care about these children at all.
Click here to read up on all the ways you can help support migrant families.
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Note: This article has been updated to take into account an executive order signed by President Trump to end the practice of family separation. You can read more on what that EO means for migrant families here. (TLDR; they now get to be in jails together, but like, the children are still in jail.)
Unless you’ve been living in a good news bubble, you’ve probably heard of the horror that is happening with migrant children being separated from their parents at the Mexican border. Due to President Trump’s “zero tolerance policy” regarding anyone caught by Border Control for trying to enter the United States illegally, nearly 2,000 children have been separated from their parents. The Zero Tolerance Policy applies to absolutely everyone, even people seeking asylum and those traveling with children. Children are considered “unaccompanied minors” under this policy and while their parents are prosecuted, they are put under the care of the government. If this is starting to sound like a dystopian novel, remember it’s real life. Here’s how to help migrant children who have been separated from their parents by the U.S. government (can’t believe I just typed that…)
Donate Your Money
With ActBlue, you can donate money to multiple services at once to ensure that your dollars will go somewhere useful. The company donates to twelve different groups that fund liberal causes and has raise more than 1.6 million dollars this year. If you donate to ActBlue, your money will benefit: Al Otro Lado, The Florence Project, Neta, Innovation Law Lab, Fuerza Del Valle, The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, We Belong Together, United We Dream, The Women’s Refugee Commission, The ACLU, Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, Human Rights First, and La Union de Pueblo Entero.
Donate Your Time
If you want to help in a different way, you can interview migrants at the border by volunteering with The Texas Civil Rights Project or The Legal Aid Justice Center. If you have legal or paralegal experience, speak Spanish, Mam, Q’eqchi’, K’iche, or live in a border area this is a great way to join the effort.
Join the Legal Fight
If you choose to donate to The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES you can aid every step of legal support for immigrant families. Aiming to provide legal service to 13,000 unaccompanied children and help pay immigration bonds for asylum seekers, RAICES has raised more than four million dollars.
UPDATE: Now that Trump has signed his executive order, we need to focus on providing legal aid to the families in jail together, and helping the families who were separated be reunited. You can keep donating to RAICES, or take a look at UnLocal, a New York City-based immigration legal services provider that represents asylum-seeking families, unaccompanied minors, LGBTQ+ immigrant youth and other individuals in affirmative and defensive immigration proceedings. UnLocal is currently developing initiatives to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the border, and your donation will enable attorneys and volunteers to provide on-the0ground assistance to asylum seekers in, including pro-bono legal assistance, and helping parents locate and reconnect with their children.
Send Them Love
While most charities encourage financial donations over items, Baby2Baby and Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) set up a Target registry calling for toiletries and other necessities.
Other trustworthy groups that help people at the border are Pueblo Sin Fronteras, which has two shelters along the border of the Sonoran desert and Border Angels. Border Angels offers legal guidance, water, and other emergency services.
Call Your Senators!
The majority of the United States agrees that separating children from their parents is immoral and there are presently several bills in the works to stop this. In the meantime, the ACLU is advising people to call their senators and voice their concerns about Trump’s policies. The ACLU can connect you directly through their website and put you in touch with a congressional staffer. Here’s what to say:
“Hi, my name is and my zip code is . I’m urging the Senator to denounce Trump’s family separation policy and use all of Congress’ authority to stop it.”
Take It To The Streets!
Protests are being organized all across the country for June 30th, when you can join the fight in your city against child separation. The main rally, Families Belong Together, will be held in Washington, but you can make a difference wherever you are by going here and entering your zip code. Despite Trump’s executive order, this march is still scheduled. Here’s what MoveOn has to say about it:
The executive order that Donald Trump signed today is not a solution to the crisis created by his administration; it keeps kids imprisoned indefinitely, and doesn’t reunite thousands of separated families. But it does show the administration is reacting to public pressure, so we will continue to increase our pressure for justice at hundreds of events on Saturday, June 30, to say that families belong together—and free.
Heads up, you need to keep up with the news. It’s not cute anymore. That’s why we’ve created a 5x weekly newsletter called The ‘Sup that will explain all the news of the week in a hilarious af way. Because if we weren’t laughing, we’d be crying. Sign up for The ‘Sup now!
Move over Kellyanne, there’s a new psychotic blonde taking over press meetings and raising the bar on how terrible this administration can be. Kirstjen (not a typo) Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security, answered questions last night regarding migrant families being ripped apart at the border and we needed to call a doctor immediately because wherever that woman’s heart should is a block of cold ice instead. So what did we learn from this medical anomaly’s press conference about Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy?
It’s All Democrats’ Fault
As is the case with everything in the Trump administration: if you love it, thank Trump, if you hate it, the Democrats are being stubborn! Let’s be very clear, Trump could end this policy on his own at any moment he chooses. He just gets off on pitting Congress against one another and has never learned what personal responsibility is in his 72 terrible years on Earth. Also, casual reminder that Republicans are literally in charge of every branch of government, and can pass any laws they want.
She Has No Idea What Cages Are
Unlike, salads, which have a very loose definition (a garden salad is a distant distant cousin from a chicken salad, say) cages are pretty cut and clear what they are. But Kristjen can’t say for sure if migrant children are being kept in them (they are) or if there are even any photos of children in said cages (there are.) This is a job for Merriam Webster’s social media manager, STAT!
She Doesn’t Know Where The Girls Are
One savvy reporter noticed that all of the images being released of children were of young boys and wanted to know where the girls being ripped from their families were. Kristjen couldn’t give him a straight answer and was like “blah blah blah I don’t know where they are but they are safe” and it’s like, this isn’t a final exam you can try and skate through, honey. You’re a monster and you’re failing the test.
This Is Obama’s Fault
Besides blaming Congress, Trump’s spokespeople must get like a raise every time they say this is Obama’s fault. Kristjen tried to say that this horrific human rights violation was in place during the previous administration, which is a lie. While Obama had strict immigration laws, as did Bush, neither separated children from their families.
She Really Has No Heart
Homegirl started off her talk by saying it was a pleasure to be there. Anyone who has felt “pleasure” in the last 48 hours regarding this situation can go bite an ice cube and get a permanent brain freeze. Also wtf kind of name is “Kristjen”?? I’m sorry but if you’re going to be policing people’s American-ness and accusing immigrants of not assimilating, you can’t be spelling Kirsten with a damn J. You just can’t.
Heads up, you need to keep up with the news. It’s not cute anymore. That’s why we’ve created a 5x weekly newsletter called The ‘Sup that will explain all the news of the week in a hilarious af way. Because if we weren’t laughing, we’d be crying. Sign up for The ‘Sup now!
