Border crisis: Funds must go to humanitarian needs

This month we’re hearing about the scandalous and shameful stories of children being held in detention camps, deprived of basic needs.

As much as those stories caught the attention of the American public, children are not the only people suffering in our detention camps. A report released last month by the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security provides illuminating details:

Seventy-six people in a cell designed for 12; 155 people in a cell designed for 35; 41 in a cell for eight, 900 or more in the El Paso Del Norte immigration processing center, designed for 125 people.

It takes no imagination to understand the consequences of such dehumanizing overcrowding.

Congress recently passed legislation which directs funds to humanitarian purposes at our borders. We need to let them know we want strict oversight to assure the funds serve the people being held.

We also need them to know we will not stand for inhumane conditions in other facilities around the country and we want an end to the divisive immigration policies and abusive words which help to create and sustain them.

We are better than this!

This story was originally published July 17, 2019 at 4:40 PM.