Dear President Obama:

We, supporters of women’s and children’s rights, urge you to address the growing human rights threat against women and children in the United States as a result of failed immigration enforcement programs. In the last two years, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau has expanded programs that enlist local law enforcement to help enforce federal immigration law with particularly disastrous consequences for women and children. Programs like 287(g) and the “Secure Communities” initiatives undermine family safety, deter women survivors of violence from seeking protection or help, facilitate workplace harassment and employer abuse, and create tremendous suffering and psychological trauma for separated mothers and children.

Last year you acknowledged the horrors children and mothers face because of enforcement policies. You stated, “When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids – when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing… When all that's happening, the system just isn't working.” These problems have only deepened as deportations and detentions increased this past year. Interior enforcement has created a dragnet that captures innocent victims of crime, mothers and children. Mothers have been forced to give birth in shackles, children have been torn from their parents for minor traffic offenses, and domestic violence survivors have suffered in silence for fear of deportation.

We applaud your recent action on Arizona’s SB1070, which you described as creating “divisiveness” and hurting public safety. In line with this assessment, we urge you to stop the administration’s programs that support ICE and local law enforcement collaboration. In fact, ICE programs that enlisted police enforcement of immigration laws such as 287(g) and “Secure Communities” program opened the door to the passage of Arizona's SB 1070. These programs compromise public safety and do not address the nation’s immigration crisis. This growing crisis for women and children demands immediate, administrative action.

Recently, a delegation of children from Arizona and throughout the country testified before Congress about the suffering they’ve experienced under this inhumane system. Mothers, aunts and other women’s advocates visited members of Congress on the matter.

We hope our call for change will be heard in the White House. Thank you for your leadership and consideration.

Sincerely,

9 to 5 National Association of Working Women
9to5 Atlanta Working Women
9to5 Bay Area, CA
9to5 Colorado
9to5 Los Angeles
9to5 Milwaukee
Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR)
Family Values at Work Consortium
Grassroots Global Justice
Jobs with Justice
MomsRising
National Domestic Workers Alliance
National Day Laborer Organizing Network
New Moon Productions, Milwaukee, WI
Puente Movement, Arizona
Right to the City Alliance
Pushback Network
Virgina Coalition of Latino Organizations (VACOLAO)
Voces de la Frontera, Wisconsin