California Senator Asks Jerry Brown To Pull Troops From Border

LOS ANGELES, CA -- State Sen. Kevin de León of Los Angeles on Tuesday called on Gov. Jerry Brown to pull troops from the border over the "inhumane treatment of vulnerable children." The lawmaker, who is also running for U.S. Senate, made his calls as media reports surface of thousands of migrant children being taken away from their parents and held in cages at the border.

"As you know, the United State Department of Homeland Security is engaging in cruel, immoral and potentially illegal separation of immigrant children from their parents along the U.S.-Mexico border," de León wrote in the letter to Brown. "This abusive practice is happening at the explicit direction of the President of the United States and Attorney General Sessions in a calculated effort to deter families from seeking asylum."

de León asked Brown to pull the nearly 400 California national guardsmen who were sent to secure the border earlier this year at the request of President Donald Trump.

"This is a shameful chapter in American history and California should have no part in it —directly or indirectly —imposing irreparable trauma on thousands of vulnerable young children," the letter went on to say. "Moreover, we should not be complicit in this administration's use of children as political leverage designed to advance an immigration agenda driven by racial animus."

de León joins leaders across the nation who have called on Trump to reunite the families, but the administration has defended its practices in securing the border with the president blaming Democrats for the separation between children and their parents.

--Photo via Shutterstock

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