Reverend Rolly LoomisThe Department of Homeland Security is considering separating Central American women from children when they arrive at the border seeking asylum, according to a Reuters report, and the response among immigrant support groups in Tucson was swift.
More than a dozen Tucson-area church groups say they are against separating mothers from their children. Instead of keeping families together, the proposal would send women and children to separate detention centers.
“I’ve been in those prisons they call detention centers,” said Reverend Rolly Loomis of First United Methodist Church. Since the start of the year, his congregation has housed more than 800 women and children who fled violent areas of Central America to seek asylum in the U.S.
Immigration officials have been releasing the women and children to area churches pending court dates.
But now, the report of a proposal to separate women and their children in detention centers has Pastor Loomis worried. He says it is inhumane to separate them, especially since they have already been through so much.
“It’s an awful idea. It’s a horrific idea. It is not humane. This is what happened to many women and children before they started using churches.”
In the end, it will be the president’s decision to either separate families or continue using churches to house them.
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