WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.) issued the following statement on President Trump’s executive order on his administration’s family separation policy:
“President Trump could end the appalling family separation crisis he created with a stroke of a pen – but this executive order doesn’t do that. Instead, this order doubles down on the president’s failed and inhumane ‘zero tolerance’ policy, which has resulted in the babies and children of immigrants being torn away from their parents and sent to detention facilities. The president’s ‘plan’ to end his family separation policy does not actually guarantee this horrible practice ends – and its only alternative is to detain families together, on military bases and other unacceptable locations, in violation of a federal court decision banning the long-term detention of children. Like many of the president’s misguided policies, this one will surely be challenged in court.
“This executive order won’t do anything to repair the life-long trauma that the president’s abhorrent family separation policy has caused thousands of children and parents. And most troublingly, the president’s executive order includes no plan to reunite these thousands of traumatized children with their mothers and fathers.
“I will be traveling to the border this week to demand answers from the administration about the conditions that defenseless children have been held under, and about how the administration plans to reunify families. We must not consider this matter settled until every last child is returned to their mothers and fathers, and until we find a humane path forward for these families."
