In the letter, evangelical leaders ask the administration and Congress to:
- Immediately appropriate adequate funding and deploy appropriately trained staff to care for children and families who are held in temporary processing facilities and in facilities for unaccompanied children;
- Respect and enforce the protections of U.S. asylum laws, ensuring that no one with a credible fear of torture or persecution “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” is returned to their country of origin or forced to remain in unsafe third countries, and that all asylum seekers are afforded due process and treated humanely throughout the process;
- Minimize the use of detention, especially the detention of children, and utilize effective alternatives to detention to ensure that those with pending asylum cases show up for court; except in cases when there is a valid reason to suspect that an individual presents a threat to public safety, families should be allowed to rely upon sponsoring relatives and friends throughout the U.S., or upon the assistance of local churches and non-profit
organizations, rather than being detained at taxpayer expense;
Today, evangelical leaders from @WorldRelief, @erlc, @NAEvangelicals, @Bethany, @nhclc & others wrote to the White House & Congress, urging them to quickly resolve the crisis facing kids & families at the border
Add your name https://t.co/NuYIu6v6Da pic.twitter.com/RvENGNy1xO
— Matthew Soerens (@MatthewSoerens) June 27, 2019