Nannies, Mothers Rally for Rights of Children

Nannies and mothers from Women Working Together, the Miami Workers Center and the National Domestic Workers Alliance will rally in South Florida to denounce the inhumanity and harm being caused to children at the hands of ICE due to the Trump administration’s “Zero Humanity” and family detention policies.

The groups will join immigrant youth, families and advocates to demand that the ICE Field Office in Miramar be closed down and that ICE be abolished at the federal level.

“Sometimes, the children are left outside waiting for their mothers who never come back out because they are sent for deportation.”
Yaquelin López

This action is part of a large effort of nannies and child care providers from throughout the country that are mobilizing between July 15-24 in front of ICE offices in New York City, South Florida, Baltimore, Seattle, and Boston, among others, to demand that all children be reunited with their families and released to the community, an end to ICE’s family detention, and the termination of Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” policy.

“Our kids are being denied their basic rights to live and develop with their families. We demand that they are treated fairly, with respect, dignity and free of hate,” says Yaquelin López from Women Working Together, an undocumented mother from South Florida who was also a nanny for six years. “Children are being mistreated inside ICE detention centers and offices. In South Florida, hundreds of children and parents have to stand for long hours in the heat or under the rain waiting for their appointment, without even being able to go to the bathroom. Sometimes, the children are left outside waiting for their mothers who never come back out because they are sent for deportation.”

“Listening to the children in detention makes me remember the cries of my own son when I had to leave to come to the United States to take care of other people’s children in order to give him a better future,” says Milagros Jiménez, a nanny in Miami and member of the Miami Workers Center. “I know by experience that family detention and separation not only affects the child, but it also affects the parents and the community.”

Child care providers denounce family detention as a false solution to separating children from their parents and demand that the administration stop any plans to build camps on military bases, and close down existing family detention facilities.