A Statement from Our Staff on Recent Events
Dear Everyone, As an organization who has worked for two decades with children, families, adults, and organizations to better understand how we can hone our skills to be peacemakers and problem solvers in our own communities, we have become deeply connected and aware of the violence and systemic oppression our communities have faced, and it is as an organization we encourage people of all ages to be up-standers and problem solvers against violence in all its forms. We find it important to speak out at this moment in history when faced with the continued patterns of racist systemic violence being perpetrated against families through incarceration, detainment, and the creation and use of government and for-profit run internment facilities. Our country has more people incarcerated than any other in the world, and now our federal government under the current administration is challenging and creating federal rules which will make it possible for ICE to detain children indefinitely and undermine the requirement to receive humane treatment and conditions. We recognize this choice as an inhumane and violent action. “The Trump administration on Wednesday unveiled a regulation to allow it to indefinitely detain migrant families who illegally cross the border. The rule replaces a decades-old court agreement that mandates a level of care for migrant children and limits how long the government can hold them in custody.” NY Times, Michael D. Shear & Zolan Kanno-Youngs, August 22, 2019 The actions of violence we are watching and experiencing