Friend, I'm here on the ground in South Texas, and I'm going to tell you what I see.

Toddlers sobbing as they are forcibly ripped from their parents' arms. Boys huddled under foil blankets, with only bottled water and bags of chips for sustenance. Children who are allowed to remain with their parents shuttled into cages for indefinite detainment.

This is not who we are.

Trump isn't fooling anyone with his executive order, which states the administration will only detain "families together where appropriate and consistent with law and available resources" -- in other words, only when they feel like it. And they have no plans to reunite families who have already been torn apart.

All Trump has done is pretend to clean up a crisis that he created while continuing to put innocent children in cages. Children should never be bargaining chips to push through destructive border policy. 

The Trump administration's heartless policy separating children from families seeking asylum from violence is cruel, inhumane, and deemed by the U.N. Human Rights Office to be against international law.

And for the innocent children being irreparably damaged -- psychologically, emotionally, physically -- even as I write, we must stop it.

Organizations like La Union Del Pueblo Entero and South Texas Human Rights Center are working literally around the clock to protect, represent, and reunify families -- and what they need right now is funds. Can we count on you to help these children and families facing heartbreak, psychological damage and even permanent separation with your emergency gift to these groups now?

Please, rush an emergency gift to help desperate families escaping violence in their countries only to be cruelly separated in ours. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of funds donated will go directly to organizations working to support separated and detained families.

The lives of young children are not political bargaining chips, and terrorizing our borderlands communities will not solve this crisis. To find a real solution, we must treat every human being with respect, and protect those who come here seeking help instead of jailing them. Together, we must also reject the militarization of the borderlands and the destructive border wall, and work instead to establish a just, humane, and welcoming immigration policy that offers a pathway to citizenship for the millions of immigrants who call this country home.

As an organization committed to the quality of the natural and the human environment, the Sierra Club has joined in the struggle to rescue our brothers and sisters escaping persecution and murder from irreparable harm. We're pressing Congress to act immediately to not only halt family separation, but reject new hardline immigration bills that further threaten border communities with militarization and mayhem.

But while we fight in Congress and the courts for the children whose futures Donald Trump has tossed aside -- just as he has the children of Puerto Rico, and other marginalized communities -- we need to protect the precious children and families suffering in tent cities, former big-box stores and "tender care" centers around the country. You can help: your donation of $5 or more to groups like La Union Del Pueblo Entero and South Texas Human Rights Center today will help reunify families and care for children devastated by Trump's racist policies.

Please, contribute what you can to support families separated or otherwise impacted by the Trump administration's horrific policy. Remember, 100% of your donations will go to locally-led partners on the ground fighting for these families.

As painful and incomprehensible as this moment is for our country, I'm grateful for members of our Sierra Club community like you.

Thank you for standing with the Sierra Club today,

Melinda Melo
Lower Rio Grande Valley Sierra Club Organizer