The United States may have reversed the policy of tearing families apart at the border, but incarcerating them together is not the answer.

Last week we were confronted with one of the saddest examples of this immoral and profoundly wrong policy in action: a five-month-old baby who was taken from his mother, and is held in immigration detention with three of his siblings. Their mother, escaping serious threats of violence, is held in a detention center several states away.

This is what an anti-immigrant policy looks like when brought to life. As the only organization in Arizona that serves detained immigrant men, women and children, we’ve seen an unprecedented number of families being torn apart.

The administration’s reversal on family separation this Wednesday does little to actually help the families already being detained. Criminally prosecuting migrants and incarcerating families is not the answer to this humanitarian crisis. There are no plans to reunify families such as this five-month-old infant with his caring mother. The damage has already been done to thousands of children held in detention centers all across the US.



Children are crying out for their parents. In fact, child welfare experts have equated this cruel practice to torture, citing irreparable damage and toxic stress. Since the beginning of the year, the Florence Project, for which I work, has documented 425 cases of family separation, with drastic increases in the last month. This policy reversal will not affect them, nor will family detention be any better.

Experts have long spoken out against family detention, and trauma inflicted on parents and children. Many families are trauma survivors and seeking safety in the US. If the US purports to uphold family values, then we cannot allow families to be torn apart, nor incarcerated together.



The administration needs to reunify all families separated immediately. Families should be paroled into the US and allowed to fight immigration cases outside of detention. The vast majority of immigrants show up to immigration court hearings, especially when they have legal representation like the services we offer.

There is no undoing of harm to the five-month-old baby, desperately seeking solace in his sibling’s arms. We will fight to reunify children with their parents and advocate for their safety, and we must all do so now.