I am one of your voting constituents. I am also one of many from across this country—people of different political parties, beliefs, and backgrounds—who are united in outrage over the treatment of children in immigration detention. This is not a partisan dispute. It is a moral line, and right now, our government is on the wrong side of it.
There is no justification—none—for confining infants, toddlers, and children in detention facilities. Places like the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley and the Karnes County Residential Center are not appropriate environments for children. They are, by their very nature, harmful. A child does not need to understand immigration law to feel fear, instability, and distress. We are subjecting children to conditions that no humane society should tolerate.
The medical community has been unequivocal. The American Academy of Pediatrics—the leading authority on children’s health—has made it clear that detaining children, even for short periods and even in facilities that meet basic standards, causes measurable and lasting harm. This is not speculation or political opinion. It is established science. The consequences include trauma, developmental delays, anxiety, and long-term psychological damage. We are choosing, knowingly, to inflict that harm.
Reports from these facilities only deepen the moral failure: inadequate medical care, unsanitary conditions, disrupted sleep, lack of clean water, and barriers to legal access. These are not abstract policy concerns—they are conditions endured by real children. If these circumstances existed anywhere else in the United States, there would be immediate outrage and intervention. The fact that these are immigrant children does not diminish their humanity or our responsibility.
What makes this even more indefensible is that detention is not necessary. Proven, humane alternatives exist. Programs like the Family Case Management Program have demonstrated that families can comply with immigration proceedings at high rates without being detained, while preserving dignity and well-being—and at a lower cost to taxpayers. We are not forced into this choice. We are making it.
This is where Congress must act. You have the authority, and more importantly, the obligation to end this. Protecting children should never be a partisan calculation. It is a basic moral duty that transcends politics. Americans across the political spectrum agree on this: children should not be placed in conditions that harm them.
History will not be kind to inaction here. Future generations will ask whether we recognized the harm and chose to stop it—or whether we allowed it to continue out of convenience or political hesitation.
End the detention of children. Close these facilities. Choose dignity over cruelty, and morality over indifference.
Sign Petition
