In recent months, the Administration has pushed out policies that impede immigrant families and children from getting protection in the U.S., including returning more than 100 asylum seekers to dangerous situations in Mexico while they await their U.S. immigration court cases.

If this isn’t concerning enough, we are now hearing reports that the Administration intends to expand this practice to additional sites along the border. This policy risks returning thousands of families to danger or death while they wait indefinitely in unsafe border towns, with no physical or legal protection.

The Administration has stated that unaccompanied children are excluded from this policy, but it is clear that unaccompanied children are nevertheless being blocked from accessing protection through other practices, including raising unnecessary obstacles to access the U.S.

These policies fail to make our country safer and pose grave danger to children. They impede our government’s ability to fairly determine which children need protection and which children can safely return to their countries of origin.

We know that no policy can deter people from trying to save their own lives or those of their children.

Rather than undermining migrant families’ ability to reach safety, the U.S. should instead address the root causes driving children and families to flee their homes – including gang violence and widespread sexual- and gender-based violence.

Let’s tell the Administration that we support policies that meaningfully address the dangers forcing children and families from their homes, not policies that put them at even greater risk.

Image Description: Migrants are being sent back to Mexico to live in makeshift camps while they await their immigration cases.