“God, for so many people facing an impossible decision—to stay home and face violence and the threat of death, or to make the dangerous journey north and face the threat of violence and separation from children—we lift prayers for wisdom. We pray for compassionate, human-centered policies. We pray for accountability when leaders fail to meet the standards we read about in Scripture—that government officials are put into place in order to do good” (Sojourners, June 1).

Here are some facts you need to know!

The Trump administration does not want you to know that children of parents coming to the US to claim asylum (because they are afraid of violence and death in their own countries) are being taken from their parents and housed often hundreds of miles away. Claiming asylum is still legal in America!

In addition, “unaccompanied minors,” whose parents have often fled to the US to find a safe place and then send for their children when they can support them, are being detained at the border until their parents come and sign for them. Of course, their parents are afraid to sign because if they are arrested, no one in their family is safe. Trump officials have said that parents who won’t come to sign for their parents are “not fit to be parents.”

These people are not immigrants; they are asylum seekers who formerly were able to apply for asylum from their home country. When it was granted, they took the journey to the U.S.  President Trump has canceled that Obama-era policy. So now people who are afraid to live in their own country because of their religion, their political view points, and the crime and violence in their world are forced to leave their country and hope that the U.S. – the land of the Statue of Liberty and the home of millions of Christians – will take them in.

These mothers and fathers and grandparents and babies and children are not “crooks” and “rapists” and “animals,” as our President enthusiastically (and falsely) brands them. They are people who need safety from their own governments and are counting on their belief that America ( a country founded by people looking for safety and freedom) is still a place of compassion and good will. They hope against hope that America and Americans will still help them.  

Many Trump Administration policies are misguided, selfish, careless, founded on lies or misinformation, or created to line the pockets of industries or groups of people. This policy is founded on cruelty and meanness and racism. It is unprecedented in American history.  President Trump is doing this because he can.  And because of political motivation to win and keep support from “his base.”  

We must stop this!