Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty; Patrick van Katwijk/Getty
Celebrities includingAmy Schumer, Sophia Amoruso andAlexa Chungare participating in a social media campaign calling onIvanka Trumpto make a stronger stand in the ongoing migrant children crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The stars, all of whom Trump follows on social media, aimed to catch the first daughter’s attention with identical posts demanding that she call for the resignation of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who has been overseeing the separation of immigrant children from their parents.
“Dear Ivanka,” the post begins. “You follow me on social media. You said family separation was a ‘low point’ for you. The low point is for the separated families. You spoke in past tense. This crisis is ongoing. As of now, 57 children have not been reunited. A child has died after separation. Approximately 400 parents have been deported without their children. There have been multiple claims of sexual and physical abuse in detention. There have been psychotropic drugs administered to children in detention without parental consent. These abuses have occurred on your father’s watch and under the leaderships of Secretary Nielsen. End these racist, inhuman and unconscionable abuses now! We demand you call for the resignation of Secretary Nielsen.”
Paola Mendoza, a filmmaker who served as the artistic director for the Women’s March, tells Bustle she organized the Instagram campaign along with fellow Women’s March alums Sarah Sophie Flicker and Alyssa Klein. The women said their goal is to “put pressure on Ivankato actually do something” about the family reunification crisis.
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PresidentDonald Trump‘s daughter and senior adviser spoke out against family separations last week, saying the issue “was a low point” — but seemingly still supporting the crux of her father’s unapologetic“solution” to the crisis: “Don’t come to our country illegally.”
“That was a low point for me as well,” she said at an Axios event in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. “I felt very strongly about that and I am very vehemently against family separation and the separation of parents and children so I would agree with that sentiment. Immigration is incredibly complex as a topic. Illegal immigration is incredibly complicated.”
She continued, “I am the daughter of an immigrant, my mother grew up in communist Czech Republic, but we are a country of laws. She came to this country legally and we have to be very careful about incentivizing behavior that puts children at risk of being trafficked, at risk of entering this country with coyotes or making an incredibly dangerous journey alone.”
Trump first commented on the issue on Twitter in June, after facingpressure from Maria Shriver and other criticsto speak out against her father’s policy. But the first daughter remained silent until after her father had signed an executive order reversing his own policy on family separations — and then applauded him for “taking critical action.”
source: people.com
