School principals condemns family separation at border

Bianey Reyes, center, and others protest the separation of children from their parents in front of the El Paso Processing Center, an immigration detention facility, at the Mexican border on June 19, 2018, in El Paso, Texas.

Bianey Reyes, center, and others protest the separation of children from their parents in front of the El Paso Processing Center, an immigration detention facility, at the Mexican border on June 19, 2018, in El Paso, Texas.

The National Association of Secondary School Principals, an organization of principals and other U.S. school leaders has come out strongly against the immigration policy of separating children from parents.

Director JoAnn Bartoletti strongly condemned the Trump administration border policy.

“School leaders recognize the faces of traumatized children. We sit with them as they relive painful experiences, isolate themselves, and act out for their inability to manage effects of deeply damaging events. As schools across the country scrape together whatever resources they can to address the needs of traumatized students, it deeply saddens us to see the faces we know all too well needlessly spreading across the U.S.–Mexico border.

“NASSP strongly condemns the policy implemented by the Trump administration to forcibly separate children from their families crossing the border to seek asylum,” she said. “We demand an immediate end to this misguided, cruel policy that is intentionally inflicting trauma on children for strictly political purposes.”