AILA’s Advocacy Action Center allows you to advocate for legislative and policy reforms consistent with AILA’s principles and priorities.
Get InvolvedThe brand-new 18th edition of Kurzban's Immigration Law Sourcebook is now shipping.
Order NowLearn how to tackle challenges like finding and retaining affordable staff, working better in a hybrid or remote environment, when and how to raise fees, and much more.
Register NowAILALink puts an entire immigration law library at your fingertips! Search the AILALink database for all your practice needs—statutes, regs, case law, agency guidance, publications, and more.
AILA Doc. No. 18062036 | Dated June 20, 2018
CONTACTS: | |
George Tzamaras 202-507-7649 gtzamaras@aila.org |
Belle Woods 202-507-7675 bwoods@aila.org |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Washington, DC - Today, President Trump signed an Executive Order, which purports to end the separation of asylum-seeking families by expanding the use of family detention, while reaffirming his commitment to a "zero tolerance" policy of border prosecutions, even for those who lawfully claim a fear of persecution and are entitled to seek asylum in the United States. Anastasia Tonello, President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) responded:
"For years, AILA and our partners, joined by champions in Congress, have spoken out against the inhumane practice of detaining families seeking asylum, first under the Obama administration and now under the Trump administration. The detention of families - parents and children - who pose no flight risk or danger to the community is simply unacceptable, abrogates our international responsibilities to refugees, and goes against our country's most fundamental values. Hundreds of AILA attorneys have fought for the children and parents who have been detained after tumultuous escapes from violence and certain death in their home countries. They've seen the worry in a mother's eyes as her child's weight dwindles due to stress, fear, and inadequate medical care, the concern of a father trapped behind a fence, under 24-hour surveillance. We need to embrace our legacy as a safe haven for the persecuted and stop subjecting bona fide refugees to further trauma by locking them up while they pursue their lawful claims to relief.
"Now, as the president attempts to sidestep the family separation crisis of his own making, our country faces another choice: whether to stand idly by as billions of taxpayer dollars are spent to establish new facilities to detain children and parents, inflicting further damage on already fragile human beings, or to stand firm against this appalling practice and the unnecessary 'zero tolerance' policy, which is a wasteful misdirection of prosecutorial resources and was the catalyst for the family separation crisis to begin with. The choice is not to either separate children from their families or jail them all.
"Incarceration of families for prolonged periods of time is senseless, particularly when humane and cost-effective alternatives to detention have been proven to be effective. The barriers to due process that AILA attorneys have encountered at every detention facility only underscore what needs to happen: both family separation and family detention must end."
###
The American Immigration Lawyers Association is the national association of immigration lawyers established to promote justice, advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy, advance the quality of immigration and nationality law and practice, and enhance the professional development of its members.
Cite as AILA Doc. No. 18062036.
American Immigration Lawyers Association
1331 G Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20005
Copyright © 1993-
American Immigration Lawyers Association.
AILA.org should not be relied upon as the exclusive source for your legal research. Nothing on AILA.org constitutes legal advice, and information on AILA.org is not a substitute for independent legal advice based on a thorough review and analysis of the facts of each individual case, and independent research based on statutory and regulatory authorities, case law, policy guidance, and for procedural issues, federal government websites.