ACLU Launches Family Separation Valentine’s Day Campaign

NEW YORK — The American Civil Liberties Union launched a Valentine’s Day campaign today to give parents and children a way to express support for the thousands of families separated by the Trump administration — and to urge the new administration to work swiftly to reunite families still torn apart, and provide care and remedies to all the separated families.

The ACLU is asking the public, including its social media followers and over 675,000 grassroots volunteers, to tweet a digital postcard to President Biden and First Lady Dr. Biden, or to print and color-in a free Valentine’s Day postcard and mail it to the White House. The campaign will also include an ad buy targeting the Biden administration to reunite the families and provide restitution.

The postcard reads: “Roses are red. Violets are blue. Families belong together, you know it’s true. This Valentine’s Day, I hope you will think about all the separated families and reunite them all in the United States. Please help them get citizenship, resources, and care, and promise that family separation will never happen again.”

The ACLU successfully sued the Trump administration to block family separation and immediately reunite families. Thousands of families were ripped apart, sparking outrage around the world. Hundreds of families remain separated.

President Biden recently signed an executive order to create a task force focused on reuniting families — a first step, but much more remains to be done. The ACLU is urging the administration to reunite the separated families in the United States and provide citizenship, resources, and a commitment that family separation will not occur again.

“I work on immigration policy, but I am a second-generation immigrant, woman of color, and a mother first — and talking to my kids about this has been hard,” said Madhuri Grewal, ACLU federal immigration policy counsel. “We know the harm to separated children can be permanent. But our government did this, with our taxpayer dollars, and we must begin to make amends. There is a long road ahead for these families, and they need to be reunited and brought back to the U.S. where they can live free from detention and deportation. The Biden administration can do this, without any new laws from Congress.”

She adds, “Many parents may be thinking about how they would react if they had to flee their country, finally reached a place where they thought they could find safety, and then had their children ripped out of their arms. Well, we have an opportunity to demand justice for the families that our country traumatized and ensure our government never does this again. So to start this new year, we’ll use my kindergartner’s new writing skills, complemented by my toddler’s scribbles, to send a Valentine’s Day card to President Biden and First Lady Dr. Biden.”

Send the digital postcard here: https://go.peoplepower.org/signup/family-separation-valentine/

Download and print the “Reunite” Valentine’s Day postcard here: https://shop.aclu.org/printable-valentines-day-card/

Watch Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix in conversation with ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, the lead lawyer on family separation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAtlzap2bUk

Read the blog, “The Moral Imperative to Eliminate the Historic Stain of Family Separation.” https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/the-moral-imperative-to-eliminate-the-historic-stain-of-family-separation/