As a national leader in child and family care and the keeper of Father Flanagan's legacy, Boys Town has an obligation to speak out whenever children are being harmed.

Right now, on our southern border, thousands of children who have been separated from their parents are living in camps, not knowing when they will see their families again. This is causing lasting and potentially devastating emotional damage, and fear and uncertainty that no child should have to experience.

While the immigration issue poses a difficult political challenge for our country's leaders, we believe any solutions should be humanitarian in nature and should not involve removing children from the security of their families. Boys Town publicly expressed this stance by signing on to a letter with 540 other organizations from all 50 states that also have expertise in child health and welfare. I presented this letter to members of Congress last week in Washington, D.C., and personally advocated for humane, trauma-responsive care for these vulnerable children and families.

When Father Flanagan founded Boys Town more than 100 years ago as a solution to the crisis of children's homelessness, he did so with love, compassion and kindness because he saw a wrong that needed to be made right. This same approach is needed now with children at the border in order to reinforce these important foundational values on which our nation was built. 

We call on our leaders to do what is morally right to protect children and to preserve America's standing as a beacon of justice and hope for the oppressed.