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NPH USA President & CEO Joins Religious Leaders in Condemning Executive Order
NPH USA President and Chief Executive Officer, Frank Donaghue, comments on separation and detention of families at the U.S. / Mexico border.
Statement from Frank Donaghue, President and Chief Executive Officer of NPH USA
June 22, 2018
NPH USA has, like many individuals, organizations and religious leaders around the world, including Pope Francis, been following the abhorrent events surrounding family detention at the U.S./Mexican border, and the separation of thousands of children from their parents. NPH USA denounces the Presidential Executive Order signed regarding these separations, believing its vague directive neglects to address the critical steps necessary to reunite the more than 2,300 vulnerable children separated from their parents since May. In addition, the order allows indefinite family detention, creating chaos and long-term negative physical and psychological effects in the lives of innocent, vulnerable children. This is unacceptable.
Since its founding in 1954, NPH has raised tens of thousands of orphaned, abandoned and disadvantaged children in nine Latin American and Caribbean countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and our NPH community outreach programs provided more than 140,000 services in 2017. We focus heavily on efforts to reunite children with their families through our family reintegration and tracing programs, believing that when possible, cohesive families are in the best interests of all children.
NPH’s philosophy has always been to work tirelessly to allow children to stay within their own countries by providing homes, education and healthcare support, ensuring the children can make a difference in their home countries as they become adults and agents for positive change within their communities. By doing this we can lessen the frequency of those families facing heartbreaking and dangerous circumstances so severe that they seek asylum elsewhere.
Our best hope for vulnerable children and their parents seeking opportunities for a better future is to invest in countries and help create opportunities for stability, leadership and safe environments.
As NPH continues to embrace our mission more passionately than ever, we must also use our voices and power to support the families and children who cannot speak for themselves. I urge the President and Congress to work together to implement humane policies for families simply seeking a better future and to clarify its position on how to swiftly reunite with their parents the thousands of children who have been separated and detained.
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Photo above: NPH Founder, Father William B. Wasson, with pequeños at NPH Mexico.