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Photo: Paul Jeffrey/WCC

Photo: Paul Jeffrey/WCC

In a statement released this week, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America (NCCCUSA) expressed distress at Trump Administration policies that separate children from adult family members.

Recent news in the USA has reported deaths on the US-Mexico border, as well as appalling conditions in facilities detaining persons seeking refuge, including babies and children.

“In addition, we are shaken by reports of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions at a border control facility in Texas where children are being detained in yet another example of mass incarceration,” reads the statement. “This horrific treatment of these most vulnerable asylum seekers is reprehensible, immoral, and must cease immediately.”

Factors at work in this humanitarian crisis include consequences of the misguided “War on Drugs,” economic exploitation by the US of Central American countries, and a ruinous foreign policy that has shut down efforts by local people to cast off dictatorial rule, the statement reflects. “Innocent people seeking refuge should not have to bear the burden of these failed policies of the US government and decades of corrupt local leadership in Central and South America,” reads the text. “At the same time, oppressive forces such as authoritarian governments and criminal gangs have contributed to the chaos.”

The NCCCUSA called upon the US government and the Department of Homeland Security to appropriate the resources necessary to adequately care for persons seeking refuge. “We demand that free and unrestrained access be given to international inspectors, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the press to the detention facilities on the border,” reads the statement.  “We call upon financial institutions to end their relationships with private companies that profit off the warehousing of brown and black bodies, whether through immigration detention or private prisons.”

The statement also calls upon Congress to stop funding deportation, imprisonment, and border militarization and respond robustly to the ever-worsening humanitarian disaster both at the border and in the countries from which so many are fleeing. “And we call upon the Trump Administration to embark upon foreign policy initiatives that will build up healthy societies in Central and South American nations,” the statement reads.

Read the full statement from the NCCCUSA

WCC Executive Committee's "Statement on People on the Move: Migrants and Refugees" (7 November 2018)