Nearly 10,000 Children Tell Congress: ‘No More Deportations’

On December 12, dozens of children visited members of Congress to deliver nearly 10,000 letters written by young people from 26 different states. Their message is clear: “Stop deportations so that all of our families can stay together.” We Belong Together, a project of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum coordinated the letter-writing campaign this holiday season.

According to Lisa Moore, a community organizer with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, these letters “show that deportation and family separation have a profoundly negative impact on children’s emotional and physical wellbeing.” Many of the children writing letters have first-hand experience with the consequences of deportation. Hundreds of thousands of American citizen children have experienced the deportation of a parent. In a six-month period in 2011, the United States deported 46,000 parents of American citizen children. Some of these children stay with friends or family after a parent’s deportation, but over 5,000 are in the foster care system.

‘I Want My Parents Back,’ a video produced by San Diego’s Media Art Center San Diego’s Teen Producers Project, details the experiences of one family separated by deportation. {snip}

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The letters were delivered to Congressional representatives just in time for the holiday season, when members of Congress are likely to be particularly receptive to the importance of family unity. {snip}

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