WHITE PLAINS, NY — Congressman Eliot Engel, who today called for the resignation of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, is an original cosponsor of H.R. 6135, the Keep Families Together Act, legislation just introduced to prohibit the Trump Administration from separating families at the border.
The Keep Families Together Act would ban the Department of Homeland Security from separating children from their parents, restrict prosecution of asylum seekers, increase child welfare training for border agents, ensure transparency, and reunite separated families. The President could end this horrific policy of family separation at any time, but he refuses to do so and has instead falsely blamed Congress for the practice.
“Our country has long been known as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to those seeking a better life. The Trump Administration’s family separation policy is a betrayal of our American values,” Engel said. “It is unconscionable that President Trump is using the lives of vulnerable parents and children as a bargaining chip to demand his anti-immigrant policies and border wall. I refuse to stand by and allow young children to be torn from their parents’ arms and sent to detention centers and tent cities in the desert. I’m proud to support this critical legislation to end President Trump’s cruel and inhumane family separation policy.”