Castro: Trump Is Caging Kids But Letting ISIS Prisoners Run Free
October 16th 2019
Julian Castro (Gage Skidmore)
By Emily Singer
Democrats took Donald Trump and his destructive and dangerous decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria to task at Tuesday night’s Democratic debate.
And none more so than Julián Castro.
Castro painted a stark image of Trump’s foreign and domestic policies. He noted that Trump’s choice to pull troops from Syria led to the escape of hundreds of ISIS prisoners, but that on the home front, the Trump administration was still detaining children at the border.
“I also want people to think — the folks this week that saw those images of ISIS prisoners running free — to think about how absurd it is that this president is caging kids on the border and effectively letting ISIS prisoners run free,” Castro said.
Castro was referring to the Trump administration’s abusive family separation policy at the border, which last year ripped immigrant children as young as a few months old from their parents, many of whom were seeking asylum.
Many of those children were detained in facilities with histories of alleged abuse or neglect, with no way to track their whereabouts. Some parents were simultaneously pushed to sign paperwork allowing them to be deported without their children.
At least 2,654 immigrant children were taken from their families under that policy, and nearly 1,000 have been removed from their parents since the administration announced the end of the separation program last summer.
Immigration lawyers and advocates, such as the ACLU, say the policy caused many children to experience horrific trauma and “long-lasting, detrimental effects.”
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