Our Opinion: Less talk, more action to end cruel immigration policy
So this is where we are: Debating whether the government separating children from their mothers and fathers is bad policy, whether it’s wrong.
It is.
That the current practice of pulling apart families who illegally cross the U.S. border is still being talked about — not acted upon — is a sad state of affairs. And you don’t have to see the heartbreaking footage or hear the eyewitness accounts about the migrant children being housed in a former Walmart building in Texas to understand how cruel and antithetical to American values the policy is.
Our local elected officials have finally weighed in. Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly announced in a tweet that he would co-sponsor the Keep Families Together Act, a measure introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein that would prohibit the removal of migrant children from their parent or legal guardian except in certain circumstances.
“As I’ve said, those trying to enter our country illegally should be held accountable and we should fix our broken immigration system,” Donnelly tweeted, “but I don’t support the (administration’s) new policy that separates children from their families.”
U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, called for the “ugly and inhumane practice to end.”
In a statement, U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Jimtown, said the policy “fails to live up to our American ideals of respect and human dignity.”
She added that she is working toward legislation to end the policy, improve border security and “provide a long-term solution for Dreamers.”
Indiana’s junior senator and the man who hopes to defeat Donnelly this fall were more circumspect. Sen. Todd Young, decrying the “broken” immigration system, said it was a “moral imperative to ensure the safety and well-being of children,’’ but didn’t explicitly express support for the Feinstein bill.
And a spokesman for Mike Braun, the Republican candidate for Senate, said that “just like President Trump, he doesn’t want to see families separated,” and urged Congress to “step up.”
Actually, the problem could be easily fixed if the president would make the call to end his administration’s “zero tolerance” crackdown at the border. As a recent fact check article explains, “The Trump administration implemented this policy by choice and could end it by choice. No law or court ruling mandates family separations.”
But Braun is correct about the need to “step up.”
Donnelly’s support for a legislative fix aside, there’s been more talk than action by our leaders, most notably the Republicans who control Congress. And while it’s good that some of them have finally found their voices, it’s not nearly enough. It’s going to take a lot more than that to fix this mess, to repair the damage to families and this country.
Time to get moving.
