Alpha Phi Alpha Denounces The Separation And Detainment Of Families

ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, INC. URGES TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO END IMMIGRANT FAMILY SEPARATION

General President Ward asks its members to urge their Congressional lawmakers to act

BALTIMORE, MD. (June 20) –  Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. General President Dr. Everett B. Ward today urged the Trump administration and Congress to immediately end the practice of forcible separation of immigrant children from their families along the Mexican border and reunite them.
In April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance policy” requiring arrest of all immigrants who attempted to enter the country along the Mexican border illegally.  Under previous administrations, those adults who crossed the border illegally by themselves often faced arrest, but anyone who travelled with a child would not be prosecuted.

“The heart-wrenching images of immigrant children being separated from their families conjures other images of our country’s troubled past when African Americans were brought here in bondage and they and their children were torn from their families,” said President Ward. “The Trump administration and Congress must end this practice immediately and find a humane and just deterrent and solution to illegal immigration.”

Recently, President Trump signed an executive order to end the separation of families at the border by indefinitely detaining parents and children together. Congressional Republicans have also attempted to develop an immigration plan to alter Trump’s contentious “zero tolerance policy.”

Ward said that President Trump’s proposed executive order to detain children and parents collectively is unacceptable as well and urges him to work with Congress to craft an immigration policy that does not punish children, but instead, provides a common-sense approach to reform. In the meantime, Ward is asking the more than 150,000 members of the nation’s first intercollegiate fraternity founded by African American men to urge their members of Congress to support legislation that will end the practice immediately and reunite families.

“We cannot stand idly by and watch children of all ages being separated from their families while their parents are caged in detention centers,” Ward said. “The voice of every member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. should be heard on this matter.  This is not the America any compassionate human being wants or believes in.”