Every Single Living First Lady Is Against Separating Children From Their Parents at the Border
Former First lady Rosalynn Carter spoke out on Monday against the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the US border and detaining them. With Carter’s denunciation of the policy, every single living First Lady has now publicly called out Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the entire White House for their attempt at deterring people from crossing the southern border.
“Removing children from their parents’ care at our border with Mexico is disgraceful and a shame to our country,” Carter said in a statement according to ABC News. “When I was first lady, I worked to call attention to the plight of refugees fleeing Cambodia for Thailand, I visited Thailand and witnessed firsthand the trauma of parents and children separated by circumstance beyond their control,” she added.
Carter joins the ranks along with Republican First Ladies Melania Trump and Laura Bush, both of whom criticized the policy over the last few days. Though Trump was as neutral as possible, saying she “hates to see children separated from their families,” while calling on nonpartisan immigration reform, Bush wrote a critical op-ed for The Washington Poston Sunday calling on the administration to stop their treatment of immigrants.
“I live in a border state,” Bush explained of her home in Texas. “I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.”
Sometimes truth transcends party. https://t.co/TeFM7NmNzU
— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) June 18, 2018
Michelle Obama shared her predecessor’s sentiments, sharing Bush’s op-ed, simply tweeting, “sometimes truth transcends party.”
While Obama rarely discusses party platforms in her public life, Hillary Clinton doesn’t shy away from making her feelings known. She ripped into the policy on Monday to clarify that the law does not demand the removal of minors from their parents — contrary to a statement tweeted by President Trump on June 5 in which he blamed Democrats for creating the “bad” law that Homeland Security must now follow.
“This is not happening because of the ‘Democrats’ law,’ as the White House has claimed,” Clinton clarified during remarks in New York. “Separating families is not mandated by law at all. That is an outright lie. It’s incumbent on all of us, journalists and citizens alike, to call it just that.”
(Photo via Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)