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Selena Gomez Speaks Out Against 'Inhumane' Treatment of Immigrant Children at the Border


Following recent disturbing reports about the treatment of migrants, especially children, at U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities in Texas, Selena Gomez spoke out on Instagram on Saturday (June 29), calling their living conditions “absolutely inhumane” and urging followers to also speak out against the children’s treatment.

According to a report by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit media organization based in the state, children have no soap, toothpaste, or diapers and are being forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded detention centers.

“Kids in cages! Sleeping on concrete floors with aluminum blankets! No access to simple dignities! How is this still happening??? It’s absolutely inhumane to treat anyone like this let alone children. I can’t even imagine what they are going through. We need to get this to finally stop! Don’t stay silent on this human rights issue,” Gomez wrote, adding the hashtags #CloseTheCamps and #FamilesBelongTogether.

This isn’t the first time Gomez has voiced her concern for the families and children who are being separated at the border because of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

“It’s extremely disheartening,” Gomez told The Hollywood Reporter during the Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation premiere last year. “There’s a lot of confusion and anger. It’s definitely been affecting so many people who are close to me.”

She also tweeted in support of the Keep Families Together Marches that took place on June 30, 2018.

Earlier this month, reports MSN, the government argued in an appeals court that because the 1997 Flores agreement, which stipulates that migrant children must be housed in “safe and sanitary” conditions, doesn’t specifically mention items like toothbrushes and soap, they’re not directly required to provide those items.



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Hillary Clinton Wants To Help Reunite Immigrant Families By Providing Transportation Resources


During OZY Fest, a two-day event in Central Park this weekend, Hillary Clinton sat down for an interview with nonprofit leader Laurene Powell Jobs and shared that she plans to help reunite immigrant families by providing transportation options.

“I’m going to be tweeting about this in the days to come, but if any of you work for an airline please direct-message me because these families will need vouchers and discounted tickets to be reunited over these thousands of miles,” she said on Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

As a result of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy at the border, thousands of children have been put into government custody while their parents are sent to immigrant detention centers until they can post bail. One major hurdle parents face once they are released from detention is that they often have to figure out how to get to the state in which their child is being held. If a parent is detained in Arizona, for example, and their child is moved to a foster care facility on the East Coast, they have to find ways to travel across the country with few resources. Activists and volunteers have offered to drive parents in some cases, but Clinton’s solution could help to provide a quicker solution for immigrants who have access to their passports and are able to fly.

This isn’t the first time that Clinton has discussed the controversial immigration policy: She’s previously slammed it as “truly, unimaginably cruel.” She also tweeted that the policy had created a “humanitarian crisis” and that “every parent who has ever held a child in their arms, every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged.”

The former Secretary of State also pulled no punches when it came to discussing Trump’s recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, criticizing what appeared to be the president accepting Putin’s denial of Russian interference in the 2016 election over information from U.S. intelligence agencies.

“It’s really distressing and alarming,” Clinton said. “It should concern every American of any political party because this was a direct attack on our democracy.”

Clinton was just one of the speakers of OZY Fest, which the New York Times described as “part music festival, part TED talk, part food fair.” The event also included guests like Rose McGowan, Cynthia Nixon, and Michelle Wolf.

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Here's How to Help Immigrant Families Who Have Been Separated at the Border


If you—like many people across the United States including all five living First Ladies—find yourself outraged by what is happening to children and families in our country’s border towns, you are probably looking for ways to help.

But first, you’ll want to know why this is happening in the first place. In April, the Trump administration instituted a “zero tolerance” immigration policy which they believe requires separating children from their parents because those parents have committed a crime. (There is much debate as seeking asylum in the U.S. is not illegal and trying to cross the border illegally for the first time is a misdemeanor.) On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that ended the separation of families, but indefinitely detains parents and children together, the New York Times reports.

You can find a full break down of the facts surrounding the policy, here. And while this list isn’t comprehensive, we have rounded up some ways you can still help families and children who are detained at the border.

Take a look:

Join in the Nationwide Protest on June 30.

A nationwide protest—organized by progressive groups like the National Domestic Workers Alliance and MoveOn—has just been announced for June 30.

The main #FamiliesBelongTogether rally will take place in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square, but sister marches are being planned across the country. “We see the outrage, and we see that this has to be taken right to the White House, right to Donald Trump, to stop the family separations,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal told Chris Hayes on his show All In with Chris Hayes.

You can look for an event near you here.

Call Your Representatives.

As with any issue that is important to you, it is vital to let your elected representatives know where you, their constituent, stands. If your senator or congressperson has already expressed that they want to abolish this policy, you can still let them know that you appreciate their position. If they don’t, let them know what you believe needs to be done.

You can easily find the contact information for your reps by inputting your zip code here.

Volunteer.

If you’re an immigration lawyer, you can sign up via the Immigration Justice Campaign (https://www.immigrationjustice.us/home) to help represent the women and men with their bond hearings and other asylum representation needs.

The Texas Civil Rights Project is “looking for volunteers who speak Spanish, Mam, Q’eqchi’ or K’iche’ and have paralegal or legal assistant experience.”

Check out Act Blue where they’ve organized a number of other organizations looking for volunteers in one place.

Donate to One of These Organizations.

RAICES: The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services is a nonprofit that promotes justice by providing free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant children, families and refugees in Central and South Texas.

ACLU: The American Civil Liberties Union is already litigating the separation policy in California and your money can help support them as they move forward.

The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights: Due to the current crisis and need for child advocates, the Center is raising funds for a new program called the Immigrant Child and Family Rights Project. Per their website, the program “will be staffed by two attorneys who will fight on behalf of individual children, advocate for systemic change to end the practice of family separation by the Department of Homeland Security, and for policies that better protect the rights of children and families.”

ActBlue: You can make a single donation here that will be dispersed to a number of organizations including Al Otro Lado, The Florence Project, and Innovation Law Lab.

The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project: The ASAP prevents wrongful deportations by providing community support and emergency legal aid to refugee families — no matter where they are located in the United States.

We will continue to update this list as new information becomes available.

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Couple Makes Facebook History by Raising $5 Million for Separated Immigrant Families


The Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy on immigration has drawn an outcry from people across the country, and many have wondered how to help families who have been separated at the border.

One couple—Charlotte and Dave Willner from the Bay Area—faced this same question before deciding to start a Facebook fundraiser to help immigrant and refugee families access legal services in Texas. Now, that campaign has collected more than $5 million, becoming the largest single fundraiser on Facebook in history.

According to the New York Times, the Willners were moved to action by an image of a baby crying as her mother was held at the border. They set a goal of raising $1,500 for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or Raices, a nonprofit organization that provides low-cost legal defense to people from immigrant and refugee communities. Donations began pouring in and, at one point, NBC News reports that it was collecting $4,000 per minute.

“When we look at the faces of these children, we can’t help but see our own children’s faces,” Ms. Willner told The Mercury News, according to the Times.

Jonathan Ryan, the executive director of Raices, told the Times that the organization plans to hire and fund training for volunteer lawyers, who will join the ranks of the nonprofit’s 50 lawyers on staff. In addition to legal representation, the funds will also go toward paying bonds so that parents can be released from detention centers.

The Willner’s fundraiser is just one way to help families who have been separated at the border. You can also sign up to volunteer with Raices here, or support other organizations that provide legal aid, including Arizona’s Florence Project and Refugee Rights Project. The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights and Kids In Need Of Defense (KIND) work on the rights of children caught in immigration proceedings.

The organization ActBlue has also compiled a list of organizations here. Other ways of assisting including buying essentials, like baby wipes and soap, for children. Baby2Baby and KIND have set up a registry through Target here.

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Rachel Maddow Breaks Down on Air While Discussing Trump’s ‘Tender Age’ Shelters for Immigrant Babies

Here Are the Facts About Trump’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Immigration Policy



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Rachel Maddow Breaks Down on Air While Discussing Trump's 'Tender Age' Shelters for Immigrant Babies


The reports about Donald Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy ripping families apart has elicited a response from many, including all of the living first ladies. But on Tuesday night, reaction hit cable news after an Associated Press report on “tender age” shelters for immigrant babies and children resulted in Rachel Maddow breaking down in tears live on the air.

The AP report states that Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border to at least three “tender age” shelters in South Texas—with a fourth shelter is set to open in Houston.

“Lawyers and medical providers who have visited the Rio Grande Valley shelters described play rooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis,” the report reads.

“The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, tells the AP. “Toddlers are being detained.”

Maddow struggled to read the breaking news, her voice trembling. “Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children,” Maddow began before stopping to seemingly hold back tears. She asks for someone to put up a graphic for the story, but when one was not available she tried to continue.

Eventually she realizes she’s not going to make it through. “I think I’m going to have to hand this off” before closing her show for the evening and sending MSNBC viewers to Lawrence O’Donnell, who was reporting live from Brownsville, Texas.

After the show, Maddow took to Twitter to apologize and finish what she was trying to say on TV. “Ugh, I’m sorry,” she wrote. “If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I’m on TV.”

While, of course, there were detractors online who called Maddow’s emotions, “crocodile tears,” many applauded her for being affected by the crisis.

Read more about the facts and fiction surrounding family separation here.

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All 5 Living First Ladies Have Spoken out About Trump Separating Immigrant Families at the Border


All five living first ladies have officially weighed in on the Trump immigration policy of separating undocumented children and their parents at the border.

On Sunday, former First Lady Laura Bush published a heartfelt Washington Post op-ed about the policy and Melania Trump released a statement saying that she “hates to see children separated from their families.” Yesterday, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Rosalynn Carter also spoke up, expressing their views on Twitter.

As Time reported, Carter released a statement that was tweeted by The Carter Center, the non-profit organization she started with her husband Jimmy Carter. In the message, she recounted her own experiences working with refugees as first lady and called out the current administration’s policies.

“When I was first lady, I worked to call attention to the plight of refugees fleeing Cambodia for Thailand, I visited Thailand and witnessed firsthand the trauma of parents and children separated by circumstance beyond their control,” Carter said. “The practice and policy today of removing children from their parents’ care at our border with Mexico is disgraceful and a shame to our country.”

Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton also expressed their views on Twitter. Obama retweeted a link to Bush’s Washington Post op-ed, writing, “Sometimes truth transcends party.” Clinton also shared her thoughts through a tweet and said, “What’s happening to families at the border right now is a humanitarian crisis. Every parent who has ever held a child in their arms, every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged.”

In her op-ed, Bush wrote that the government “should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso.” She also said, “I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.”

Melania Trump shared in her statement that she “hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform.”

The policy of forcible separations has come under fire as videos and stories have emerged, showing children in detention centers. Protests and demonstrations have erupted in cities across the country, according to CNN.

Calls for Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to resign are pouring out of Washington after a Monday evening White House press briefing, where the administration doubled down on the zero tolerance policy.

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