INTERFAITH MINISTERIAL ALLIANCE CALLS FOR PUBLIC WITNESS ON CHILD-SEPARATING

Members of the Interfaith Ministerial Alliance of Key West have issued a Statement of Faith rejecting the present United States government policy that forcibly separates parents and children of those families accused of crossing into the country illegally.  Calling out the practice of tearing apart families of people seeking asylum from many forms of violence – domestic, gang, and political – as inhumane, these faith leaders remind us all: “If we remain silent in the face of grave injustice, we are each complicit in its act.  When it is done in our names, as actions of our government, we are doubly responsible.”

In addition, the residents of Key West are called to witness to the more inclusive and compassionate values we uphold as a community on Thursday, June 21, 2018, at 5pm outside the Gato Building, 1100 Simonton Street, to implore our elected Representative, Carlos Curbelo, to either initiate or join efforts to end this practice through legislation.

The Ministers will be join by a coalition of other community groups in this witness event.

The Statement of Faith:

People of faith take seriously the injunctions of their scriptures and the ever-present calls to compassion.

They also acknowledge their responsibility to be the voice for those who have lost their voices in situations of violence, war, poverty, and other forms of human degradation.

They equally hear the repeated calls for action in the face of evil, lest their silence implies consent.

Today the government of the United States is forcibly removing children from parents who arrive at our borders seeking asylum from situations of violence, domestic and community.

That this is being done at all is inhumane. That is it being done before legal recourse and the rights of asylum is unconscionable.

We, the interfaith leaders of Key West, unite in our call upon the government of the United States to end this practice of separating children from their parents, placing the children in barely humane concentration camps of confinement.

We also call upon those agents of the government of the United States who carry out these orders to remember the judgement of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials that “just following orders” was an ineffective justification for their crimes against humanity.

If we remain silent in the face of grave injustice, we are each complicit in its act.  When it is done in our names, as actions of our government, we are doubly responsible.

Therefore, we Faith Leaders in Key West, call upon the elected officials of the United States to immediately and completely end the inhumane practice of separating children from adult asylum seekers at all of our borders, and

We call upon our elected leaders to actively speak out against such a practice and enact such legislation as would prohibit this practice, and

We call upon the people of Key West to join us on Thursday, June 21, 2018, at 5pm, to join in witness at the office of our elected Representative, Carlos Curbelo, to implore him to finally speak on this issue and take the action of introducing legislation to end the practice.

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