June 18, 2018

Dear Members of Congress –

As faith leaders and elders who share across our various traditions core values of human dignity, compassion, justice and community we denounce the barbaric separation of children from their parents unfolding at the US-Mexico border.  We call on you to do everything in your power to highlight and undo this immoral and indefensible policy.

We know that this policy is enforced by two agencies - Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). We urge you to use your power to reduce funding for their violent work of family separation.

To the terrified children and grieving parents whose families have torn apart, we say: “We see you.” We see your humanity and the love that has impelled you to seek a more secure future. Our hearts break with you and for you.

To Attorney General Sessions and other federal officials who have devised this ‘zero-compassion’ policy at the border, and to all those complicit in implementing it, we say: “Not on our watch.”

We will not stand by while children are traumatized and families are separated in our name.  We will pray, teach, vote and mobilize our communities of faith to resist all policies that punish our immigrant families and to promote policies that will end the separation of families in the months ahead.

Nor will we abide the invocation of sacred texts to justify this shameful policy.

We have lost our way as a nation.  We will stand together in all the names of our Creator to call us back as a nation to a vision rooted in hope rather than fear; to trust in G-d rather than anxiety; to compassion rather than punishment; to love rather than hate.

In all of these efforts, we will seek to call us back as a people and, perhaps, to save the soul of America. We call on you to stand with us, and to defund this sinful system of family separation.

Sincerely,