Call your elected officials to stop family separations for Asylum Seekers

Dear Friends,

We have all be moved by the human pain of family separations in the detention centers at the U.S. border in recent days.  

Regardless of laws and politics, the separation of children from parents without due process raises in our memory and consciousness Jewish horrors from a different time and place.  Regardless of reason or purpose behind the policy debate, as Jews we are unwilling to accept the outcome that we are seeing.

To that end, the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ, and all arms of the Conservative movement have joined 26 Jewish organizations and other religious groups in condemning the cruel and unconscionable policy of separating children from their parents seeking asylum in the United States. We are horrified by the heart-wrenching pictures of children being torn from the arms of their parents and put into prison detention of any kind, and of the credible reports of tent cities going up in 100-degree heat to accommodate hundreds of these children.

The presumption of guilt for all undocumented entries into the United States at the border is an abrogation of constitutional process that all are innocent until proven guilty.  Those seeking asylum have committed no crime, and to presume so is against our core principles.  To then use that false presumption to take children from the protective arms of parents is unconscionable. 

I urge all of our members to call your elected leaders, the Attorney General, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House to protest. Their numbers are listed below.

White House, (202) 456-1111

Attorney General Jeff Session’s office, (202) 514-2000

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen’s office, (202) 282-8000

Senator Robert Menendez
Washington office: (202) 224-4744, New Jersey office: (973) 645-3030

Senator Cory Booker
Washington office: (202) 224-3224, New Jersey office: (973) 639-8700

Rep. Josh Gottheimer – 5^th District
Washington office: (202) 225-4465, New Jersey office: (201) 389-1100

Rep. Leonard Lance – 7^th District
Washington office: (202) 225-5361, New Jersey office: (908) 518-7733

Rep. Albio Sires – 8^th District
Washington office: (202) 225-7919, New Jersey office: (201) 309-0301

Rep. Donald Payne Jr. – 10^th District
Washington office: (202) 225-3436, New Jersey office: (973) 645-3213

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen – 11^th District
Washington office: (202) 225-5034, New Jersey office: (973) 984-0711

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman – 12^th District
Washington office: (202) 225-5801, New Jersey office: (609) 883-0026

Recognizing that a genuine policy debate is under way, I implore you to exercise your voice on behalf of family unity for all asylum seekers to our country.  We as a people, more than any other, can not allow such an outcome.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Robert L. Tobin