There has been a torrent of words flooding around Donald Trump’s horrendous, cruel separation of immigrant children from their parents at our country’s Southwest border. Yet, there have been surprisingly few actions to back up those words. Now, all that has begun to change.
Four members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council resigned to protest the White House immigration policies. They called them “morally repugnant,” according to The Washington Post.
Former Secretary of the Navy during the Clinton administration, Richard Danzig, and former Democratic Congresswoman, Elizabeth Holtzman, announced their resignations. All four sent their resignations in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
These individuals said that Nielsen did not discuss the administration’s intentions with its advisory council before pulling over 3,000 children from the arms of their parents:
‘Were we consulted, we would have observed that routinely taking children from migrant parents was morally repugnant, counter-productive and ill-considered. We cannot tolerate association with the immigration policies of this administration, nor the illusion that we are consulted on these matters.’
President Barack Obama’s former DHS deputy general counsel, David Martin, and National Counterterrorism Center director, Matthew Olsen, also signed the letter.
Former New York City police commissioner and current vice chairman of the advisory council, Bill Bratton, wrote a response:
‘Each of you was appointed owing to lifelong dedication to the nation and her people, and, indeed, I can appreciate that each of you sees this resignation as part of that dedication.’
Holtzman and Martin also wrote individual letters to Nielsen expressing their concerns. Martin wrote:
‘These actions have fueled polarization, alienated state and local governments, and moved us much further from a sustainable, effective, and strategically sensible immigration enforcement program.’
Then, Holtzman wrote:
‘DHS has been transformed into an agency that is making war on immigrants and refugees.’
She later added:
‘I do think it’s important for the American people to see that not everybody connected with the government is a brute, is a lawbreaker (sic)Â and that actually some of us do have a measure of conscience.’
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
