BURLINGAME – CTA President Eric C. Heins issued the following statement today calling for an immediate end to the separation of families at the U.S. border:

“Joined by my fellow educators, we call on an immediate end to the Trump Administration’s new and inhumane policy of separating accompanied immigrant children from their parents. This unconscionable practice is antithetical to American values, to family values, and to basic human decency. The use of dehumanizing terminology such as “infesting” to describe immigrants and to justify this unimaginable cruelty must also stop.

“Since May, more than 2,000 families have been ripped apart at our border as they have come to America seeking a better life. Many of them have hazarded a long and dangerous journey, often fleeing oppression and life-threatening violence in their native countries. Now they are being further traumatized by this deliberately cruel practice. These children and their families deserve better from a nation whose immigrant history is symbolized by the Statue of Liberty.

“Educators also call on Congress to act immediately to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) immigrants who were brought here as children and for whom America is their home.

“Our immigration policies must be based on compassion, and all those seeking entry into the United States must be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of the ultimate disposition of their cases. Immigration policies based on deliberate cruelty are counter to everything America stands for. Educators demand that those policies stop and that all children, regardless of their immigration status, be treated with utmost care once they cross our borders. That care begins by keeping families together.”

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The 325,000-member California Teachers Association is affiliated with the 3 million-member National Education Association.