KINGSTON, Jamaica — The People’s National Party (PNP) External Affairs Commission has expressed grave concerns amid the ongoing border crisis in the United States which has resulted in the separation of children from their parents.

The commission in a release this morning said that, whilst it respects the right of sovereign states to protect the integrity of their borders as well as to regulate immigration policy as they deem necessary and within their national interest, it deplores the recent implementation of a policy approach to immigration taken by the United States.

This approach, it said, has led to the deliberate separation of children from their parents without a clear plan of reunification.

The committee reasoned that the approach also runs counter to the humanitarian ethos that has long informed immigration in the United States, which has historically been the land which welcomed the oppressed peoples of the world fleeing persecution and atrocities.

“The harrowing sights and wailing of children traumatised by their separation from the protective care of their parents; and the dehumanising warehousing of children in cages send a wrong signal around the world and impairs any moral authority of the United States.

“The commission condemns in the strongest term this arrangement,” it said.

The commission also commended citizens of the United States, who it said, were shocked and repulsed by this zero tolerance approach, for their collective objection and action against the policy for its manifest negative and traumatic impact on children separated and detained.

It also said the executive order issued by President of the United States, Donald Trump to cease this aspect of the approach is timely, adding that it hopes the US Government and its agencies will act swiftly and effectively to immediately reunite the children separated from their families.