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Vermont Legislature
Follow VPR's statehouse coverage, featuring Pete Hirschfeld and Bob Kinzel in our Statehouse Bureau in Montpelier.

Vermont House Urges DHS To Reunite Separated Kids With Their Families

A protester outside the White House in Washington, D.C., Thursday. Members of the Vermont House voted Friday to oppose a decision by the Trump Administration to separate children from undocumented parents at the border.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais
/
AP
A protester outside the White House in Washington, D.C., Thursday. Members of the Vermont House voted Friday to oppose a decision by the Trump Administration to separate children from undocumented parents at the border.

The Vermont House has given its tri-partisan approval to a resolution that strongly opposes a decision by the Trump Administration to separate undocumented parents from their children along the Mexican border.

The vote was 106 to 17. Here's how your representatives voted.

The joint resolution introduced Friday says:

J.R.H.2: Joint resolution condemning the recently reversed federal policy of separating children from their families at the southern international border, expressing a profound hope that the family separation policy will not be reinstated, and imploring the Department of Homeland Security to reunite the separated families immediately

After receiving a lot of criticism for the policy, President Donald Trump announced this week that he was stopping the practice.

Bradford Rep. Sarah Copeland-Hanzas, who supported the joint resolution, said the separation policy was unfair to the families.

"What we have going on on our southern border right now is nothing short of a humanitarian crisis," Copeland-Hanzas said. "It is being created by our own government."

Newport City Rep. Gary Viens spent 27 years working for the Federal Border Patrol along the U.S.-Canadian border.

He blames the situation on the undocumented parents.

"Just remember this: It was the parents' decision in the end to separate them," said Viens, "not the U.S. Government's."

Viens voted against the joint resolution.

Although the Trump Administration has discontinued its family separation practice, it's not clear what will happen to the estimated 1,800 children DHS says remain separated from their parents.

Bob Kinzel has been covering the Vermont Statehouse since 1981 — longer than any continuously serving member of the Legislature. With his wealth of institutional knowledge, he answers your questions on our series, "Ask Bob."
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