As processing centers in Texas border towns run out of space and public outcry increases, the practice of separating families at the border is escalating into a crisis that experts describe as "unsustainable."
"This is a political game," said Luis Céspedes, chair of the lawyer's committee for Sacramento's Safe Haven Task Force. Besides using family separations as a strategy to deter people from crossing the border, "They want to force Democrats to pay for the wall, to pay for security, to pass an immigration law that limits lawful immigration."
Céspedes said there are legislative and judicial avenues to see the end of the practice, but both would take long, given the conditions that children endure while separated from their families.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit in San Diego, challenging the practice of separating families at the border, citing two cases of women from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Brazil. The judge ruled the plaintiffs "had a Fifth Amendment constitutional substantive right to have care custody and control of their children," Céspedes said.
In March, the ACLU filed a national class-action suit to broaden the scope of that decision.
“Much like the travel ban and other Tenth Amendment attacks on withholding funding from cities, those can be issued immediately by a court and hopefully made nationwide,” Céspedes said.
If that route doesn't succeed, several legislators are pushing bills to stop the practice, but those efforts "will take a while, that's the problem with legislative solutions," Céspedes said.
Finally, he concluded the greatest power lies in the public. The administration can stop breaking families apart when it chooses to. Under enough pressure, they just might.
"Every person needs to write to their congressperson needs to get on Twitter, get on Facebook, talk to their neighbors, register to vote, change this policy once and for all. Because it is the most anti-American policy since the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II,” Céspedes said.
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