All four living former first ladies are showing a united front against the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy toward illegal border crossings that has resulted in family separation after former first lady Rosalynn Carter on Monday issued a rare public statement.
“When I was first lady, I worked to call attention to the plight of refugees fleeing Cambodia for Thailand. I visited Thailand and witnessed firsthand the trauma of parents and children separated by circumstances beyond their control,” Carter wrote in a statement released by the Carter Center. “The practice and policy today of removing children from their parents’ care at our border with Mexico is disgraceful and a shame to our country.”
Statement from former U.S. First Lady Rosalynn Carter on children separated from their parents at the border: pic.twitter.com/WVg91SWutl
— The Carter Center (@CarterCenter) June 18, 2018
Carter’s comments follow the publication of an evocative opinion piece by former first lady Laura Bush on Sunday, in which she called the policy “immoral,” adding that “it breaks my heart.”
“I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel,” Bush wrote for the Washington Post.
“Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso,” she continued. “These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.”
Former first lady Michelle Obama shared Bush’s op-ed on social media on Monday, tweeting: “Sometimes truth transcends party.”
Sometimes truth transcends party. https://t.co/TeFM7NmNzU
— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) June 18, 2018
Former first lady Hillary Clinton also condemned the policy online on Sunday, as well as at an awards lunch for the Women’s Forum of New York on Monday.
“Separating families is not mandated by the law — at all,” Clinton said. “And it’s incumbent on all of us, journalists and citizens alike to call it just that.”
Under the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy, which was announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in April, all illegal immigrants are referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. The move has led to an increase in the number of children separated from their family units as their parents or guardians are prosecuted for illegally crossing the U.S. border because minors cannot be held in detention facilities for long periods of time.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Friday that almost 2,000 children were affected by the policy between April 19 and May 31, who are then housed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
[Trump administration could be holding 30,000 border kids by August, officials say]
President Trump is expected to meet with the entire GOP caucus on Capitol Hill Tuesday to push congressional Republicans toward passing legislation that may address the family separation matter.
First lady Melania Trump on Sunday urged Democrats and Republicans to come together and agree on compassionate U.S. immigration law reform.
“Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform,” Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump’s communications director, said in a statement shared with the Washington Examiner. “She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.”
[Also read: Lou Dobbs: ‘Disturbing’ that all living first ladies are condemning family separations at border]
