The Trump administration has waged a sustained and coordinated campaign of chaos to instill fear and deter families — including women and children fleeing danger and violence at home — from seeking asylum in the U.S.

This administration has dragged its feet in implementing the reunification of separated families. It is ignoring millions of Americans who took to the streets this summer to decry these barbaric policies. And it is on the wrong side of a new nationwide poll, commissioned by the Women’s Refugee Commission, showing that 70 percent of likely voters support allowing refugees to seek asylum in the U.S., and that two-thirds of voters oppose family detention.

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As of this writing, President Trump Donald John TrumpOmar fires back at Trump over rally remarks: 'This is my country' Pelosi: Trump hurrying to fill SCOTUS seat so he can repeal ObamaCare Trump mocks Biden appearance, mask use ahead of first debate MORE is set to deploy 5,000 U.S. troops — in addition to the 2,100 he already sent — to the border to intercept refugees fleeing violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. He reportedly also is considering closing the border to asylum-seeking families from Central America — a move that would violate human rights law — under the guise of national security.

We also know now that the administration is seeking to resume family separation at the border, this time in combination with family detention in what is being called a “binary choice.” This measure would force parents to choose between being separated from their children or being held together indefinitely in family jail, in conditions that do not meet child welfare standards.

This isn’t about sound policy, this is about the worst kind of electioneering — pandering to hate and fear.

Let’s be clear — “binary choice” is not a choice.

By being forced to choose separation, parents will have their children taken from them and sent to unfamiliar shelters and care, and risk never seeing their children again. Even after the disaster of the failed separation policy, there is still no coordinated system or unified database for tracking family separations. Children separated at the border may be lost to a chaotic and disorganized system that causes irreversible trauma and harm.

By being forced to choose to stay together in jails that do not meet basic standards for child welfare, parents would be endangering their child in a different — but no less insidious — way, essentially signing away their child’s rights under established U.S. precedent that governs the conditions under which migrant children can be detained.

Experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, find both options to be harmful to children. This is not a choice any parent should ever have to make. In considering it, the administration reveals its willingness to prey upon the fear, stress, and confusion of parents who have come to the United States to seek protection for themselves and their children.

These parents already have been forced to flee their homes and everything they know in order to protect their families. The “choice” the administration is proposing to “offer” amounts to nothing short of exploitation of people under extreme duress.

With this administration, however, past is prologue.

It was a mere six months ago that the administration began separating children from their parents under its ill-fated “zero-tolerance” policy. They counted on us to not notice or care.

The administration tried to gaslight the nation into believing that somehow this was just about law enforcement or border protection.

In June, a judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to fix its self-created catastrophe by reunifying separated children with their parents.

Still, more than four months since the ruling, this legal victory rings hollow. The administration has blown past every deadline, clearly unable and unwilling to fix the chaos it created.

It has tried every possible workaround and dodged all accountability by foisting responsibility for its actions on others. While some children have been reunited with their parents, it is despite of — and not because of — government intervention.

Now we are being confronted with the possibility that this policy might be resuscitated — incredibly, in an even more callous form than the first time.

We cannot accept this. We must not accept this. And, out of the fog of deception and manipulation, a certain clarity has emerged — that the American people will not accept this.

The new poll indicates that 75 percent of American voters believe all people enjoy basic human rights—no matter who you are or where you are from — and that this is why the U.S. offers asylum to refugees.

Similarly, 87 percent of voters believe that protecting children and families is an American value, and 77 percent believe we have to protect children and families who are facing danger of violence at home. These are American values, not partisan views — reflecting a cross-section of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.

The president wants us to believe that cruelty works — and that there are no other options. The truth is the cruelty and other deterrence efforts have never stopped parents from doing whatever it takes to keep their children safe.

In fact, most Americans support rational, nuanced policies that maintain our longstanding tradition of and deep commitment to respecting human rights, while also providing safeguards against abuse of the asylum system.

We have legal, humane, and effective alternatives, including releasing families into the community and case management programs.

Not surprisingly, the Trump administration terminated these programs that are known to work — in favor of radical policies designed to dismantle our tradition of protecting families and children.

But these policies do not have to stay with us. Despite what the administration says, we have other options.

We have seen clearly that the American people — as divided as they are on so many topics — are more united than ever on this one. By doubling down on the wrong side of this issue, the administration is increasingly on the wrong side of this country.

If they won’t relent with this campaign of chaos, then neither can we.

Michelle Brané is director of the Migrants Rights and Justice program, with the Women’s Refugee Commission.