Sign petitions:

Including those from:

• ACLU
• Children’s Rights
• Latin American Working Group
• The Women’s March
• National Domestic Workers Alliance

Contact Your Legislators

We’re asking for help to put pressure on state officials representing Pennsylvania on the federal level. You can find your legislator here, or if you know your representative, call one of the phone numbers below and leave a message asking to end these atrocities:

• Representative Bob Brady: (202) 225-4731
• Representative Lloyd Smucker: (202) 225-2411
• Representative Matt Cartwright: (202) 225-5546
• Representative Tom Marino: (202) 225-3731
• Representative Mike Doyle: (202) 225-2135
• Representative Ryan Costello: (202) 225-4315
• Bill Shuster: (202) 225-2431
• Keith Rothfus: (202) 225-2065

What state officials are doing:

• Attorney Josh Shapiro and 20 other state attorneys general have signed on to letters to end the tactic of separating children from parents at the U.S. border
• U.S. Senator Bob Casey is a cosponsor of the Keep Families Together Act in Congress. More than 45 other Democrats have signed on to cosponsor this initiative.
• Gov. Tom Wolf will not deploy National Guard resources near the U.S.-Mexico border.

What is happening at the U.S.–Mexico border and why it matters?

• President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a zero-tolerance policy towards border crossers apprehended between ports of entry
• This means every individual apprehended who arrived at a location other than a port of entry is referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution
• This includes individuals seeking asylum, and means that adults traveling with children will be separated
• While the parents will go into custody of the U.S. Marshals and/or the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the children are transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)
• This has accounted for more 2,000 children being separated from their parents over the past 6-week period
• More than 10,000 children currently reside in shelters run by the ORR
• These shelters are cells surrounded by tall metal fencing in a facility similar to a warehouse
• Despite these conditions, Kirstjen Nielsen, the Department of Homeland Security Chief insists, “Migrant children separated from their parents are being well taken care of.”
• The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recommends Alternatives to Detention (ATD) which include the release on recognizance, community support, or bond, as well as formal monitoring programs
• They stress that not only are ATD more humane, but they are far less costly than institutional detention
• Every year, ICE spends more than $2 billion in taxpayer dollars for immigration detention
• Despite this cost, ICE has one single ATD program, which supervises less than one-tenth of the number of individuals ICE has imprisoned
• The ACLU recommends that ICE ensures alternatives to detention, including community support programs, are available in all field offices