Dear voornaam, I'm writing from the Texas border to tell you that conditions inside the Trump administration's detention centers are every bit as horrific as you're seeing on TV and social media. The sights, the smells, the crying, the desperation. I can't believe this is America. Elementary school-age children, going weeks without bathing—so hungry they can't sleep at night, caring for infants they don't even know. Teenage mothers wandering around in breastmilk-stained shirts. Toddlers without diapers urinating and defecating in their pants. Mold. Lice outbreaks. Rapidly spreading fevers, diarrhea and vomiting. A pediatrician in McAllen, Texas compared the conditions at one Border Patrol center to torture facilities: with extreme cold temperatures, no access to basic hygiene or medical care, inadequate food and water. Local organizations like RAICES and the Texas Civil Rights Project are working around the clock to provide legal and medical aid and move children out of these inhumane facilities and back with their families where they belong. But they need our help. PLEASE, rush an emergency donation now. 100% of funds donated will go directly to organizations working to support separated families and overturn Trump's zero-tolerance policy. voornaam, groups like RAICES and the Texas Civil Rights Project are working furiously to help families post bail so they can be reunited with their children. They're also helping with acute needs such as clothing and food for detained children—along with housing, transportation and medication for the young mothers and other parents who have risked everything to escape violence and provide better lives for their families. The Sierra Club is stepping up to support our partners in the broader movement to help fight back against these atrocities. These are groups we work closely with as allies to protect vulnerable communities and the environment on our work against the border wall, and they can do the best work to protect these families. Make no mistake—this is a humanitarian crisis of the Trump administration's making. Your gift today will not only help groups working on the ground to reunite parents and children, provide pro bono legal advocacy, secure medical aid and more—it will also help advocates working tirelessly to end Trump's cruel zero tolerance policy once and for all. Please, give as generously as you can. Rush your emergency gift now to help the more than 1,700 children currently suffering in unsanitary, under-supervised border camps and reunite them with their families. Remember, 100% of funds donated will go directly to groups like RAICES and the Texas Civil Rights Project—so please don't wait. I don't think any of us will be able to forget the horrific images described this week by the attorneys, doctors working furiously, desperately to help these children—and by the journalists who brought these barbaric camps to light. What we can do is show the rest of the world who we really are: a nation of parents, of doctors, of activists and advocates, who believe dehumanizing people puts our own humanity in question. Please, contribute what you can to help these traumatized children now—without question, you will be saving lives, reuniting families, in real time. Thank you for caring, for giving, and for helping these incredible, indispensable organizations now. With deep gratitude, Jonathan Salinas
Executive Committee Member
Sierra Club Lower Rio Grande Valley Group | 
