As Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen has directed the “zero humanity” policies, overseen family separation, and bears responsibility for the 650+ children who are now permanently orphaned. Under her leadership, nothing has been done about the over 1300 charges of sexual and physical abuse filed against ICE by women and children in detention. Children torn from their families have been drugged while held in detention facilities. And now, we’ve heard about at least one child who died after being in ICE’s care. It’s time for Nielsen to resign.

My name is Tye Smith, I am an American citizen in desperate need of your help. I am married with a six year old daughter living in Cabot Arkansas for the last seven years. My wife Rosa Palacios is from Peru she originally came to the United States back in 2007 on a visitors visa and again in 2010 which is when I met her and we fell in love. She accidentally over stayed her visa by 11 days but didn't realize it until she tried to come back to the US a month after returning to Peru. She was detained at the airport and sent back to Peru. I went to visit her in Peru three different times the second in which we were married. Also on the second visit we got pregnant. Due to my medical conditions I could not stay in Peru with her for longer than two months at a time. I have had several back surgeries and have a Pain Pump that is inserted into my stomach which I have to get refilled every two and a half months. It was not financially possible to keep going back and forth over and over again and even if that was possible they do not have the technology to refill my Medtronics pain pump. Upon returning to the US I filed a K1 fiancé visa for her. I waited and waited and after not having heard and my wife being seven months pregnant, we decided it would be best to bring her to Mexico and live in a border town and I could work on the US side. After being there in Nuevo Laredo for about a month and actually seeing people get shot and hung from bridges we were scared to death not only for us but for our unborn daughter and could no longer continue with our plans to stay there waiting for her Visa approval. As much as we didn't want to do it this way, we decided to try and come back to the US and were detained at the border. Due to my wife being seven months pregnant they released her to me as long as we checked in each year so that is what we did. We checked in year after year with immigration waiting for our turn to go in front of a judge however when we showed up to check in last June with immigration they told us that she had to leave the US. We were caught way off guard. They said we have no right to have our case heard and she had ten days to leave the Country. Our attorney called immigration asking if there was anything at all we could do and was told that due to my medical condition being unable to take care of our daughter on my own we could file for a Stay of Removal. We were granted the stay last year and was told to file again each year due to my condition getting gradually worse however when our attorney filed for the stay last month we were told this week that we were denied and that she has two weeks to buy a plane ticket and leave the country. We are in desperate need of help, I don't know how much longer I am going to be able to work with my back being so bad and cannot take care of my daughter alone. Also, i have no family close by to help out therefore I need my wife more now than ever. I am asking you to please help, please look at her case they have given us a date of August 1st to have the plane ticket and August 11th to leave the country. Thank you so much, Tye Smith

Because it's the only American way that we can respond to this atrocity conducted by our government.

The families separated by Trump are essentially hostages. We need a national campaign to express our grief. Everyone is affected when our moral compass is astray!

American citizens are not monsters that want to steal children from those seeking a better life. This horrifying act by the current administration is cruel and unnecessary. I haven't been personally victimized by this action but as a human being and a parent I think we need to speak up!

To Keep Whoopi Goldberg on the VIEW

In late June, press reports indicated that Gen. James Mattis was asked by the Administration to assist with the "zero tolerance" immigration policy by building austere, temporary tent camps on military bases to incarcerate migrants detained at our southern border. Gen. Mattis indicated his permission, although this incarceration plan is jurisdictionally and morally very problematic. And clearly, we the people need much more information about this. It is not the Military's job to imprison immigrants for any reason or length of time. Migrants from the southern border are overwhelmingly fleeing violence in their home countries. They are not enemies of the U.S. Rather, many of them have legally requested Asylum but are being criminalized nonetheless. Parts of the Zero Tolerance policy are being reversed in court challenges, such as the separation of children from their parents, and the indefinite detention of children & families. Moreover, both houses of Congress have created a version of the Families Belong Together Act, which explicitly states that they do not favor indefinite detention of these migrant families. Reports indicate that now, the Administration has reverted to an Obama-era policy which let families live in the U.S., wearing ankle tracking bracelets, as they await adjudication of their cases. It is not clear that more detention facilities are even necessary. Transparency has been abominable as even members of Congress are denied access to many detention centers. There are reports of inhumane conditions which some congressmembers have actually observed, and more of which have been kept hidden from the legislature and the public. This is a national emergency, and I have created this petition because the zero tolerance policy has proven to be inhumane and illegal, at least in some respects. For the armed forces to get involved would hurt the Military's reputation both at home and abroad and would certainly negatively affect morale and recruitment of new volunteers. I hope you'll sign my petition to General Mattis, urging that he do the right thing by halting any activity in furtherance of the request to build tent camps and incarcerate migrants in them on military bases. In halting this action, he would be acting for the Military, the migrants who are neither foreign nor domestic enemies of the United States, and for citizens. It's the right thing for him to do.

I've started this petition because President Donald Trump has caused many families to be separated, other countries don't like him which puts our country at risk to be attacked, and President Trump has no filter on what he wants to say and acts on impulses. I have personally been affected by Donald Trump tearing apart families who have done nothing wrong, it is cruel and unfair to the children.

I'm starting this petition because I can't sit by and do nothing while our sitting President commits crimes. It goes against everything the US has always stood for in the world. The letters from the mothers who had their children taken are just heartbreaking and the thought that one of the most powerful leaders of the free world is responsible is reprehensible to me. Someone has to stop him.

I've waited for 12 years to bring my sister here. Her daughter and son aged out of my petition. They had to go back to the end of the line and start a new petition. They've been waiting for several years and now the travel ban is making it very difficult for them to get approved. It's been 18 years.

Since May of this year, the Trump Administration has been separating children from their families at the border in order to deter future migrants from coming across. This has been a horrific/devastating practice. Even babies have been taken away; a one-year-old child appeared before an immigration judge this week without his parents and cried uncontrollably the whole time, and the judge said he was “embarrassed” that he had to ask whether the child understood the proceedings. Federal courts have ruled that the Trump Administration MUST reunite children under five with their parents immediately, but Trump has failed to do so. Reports have shown that the Department of Homeland Security never collected records for some of these children, or in some cases destroyed them, or misplaced them, or never shared them. This might mean that children are NEVER reunited with their actual parents. This is a scandal, but so far Congressional Republicans have been missing in action. Tell Congress that they need to open an investigation on Trump’s horrible practice of separating families, and its apparent inability to reunite them.

As a Phoenician, I expect all of our elected leaders to act in the best interests of children who cannot defend themselves and hold bad actors accountable. AZDHS needs to conduct a thorough investigation and, if appropriate, pursue legal remedies to ensure similar events never occur again. Children depend on responsible adults for their safety; we cannot fail them again.