IlmFeed
The Muslim Community of the Tampa Bay Area have offered to host children separated from their families at the US-Mexico border.
Children of migrants who were caught illegally crossing the border, many of whom were seeking asylum in the US are being held in temporary detention centres as they cannot be put in custody with their parents.
This policy has spared outrage in the country as well as around the world.
Now, the Muslim community in the Tampa Bay Area in Florida have offered to take care of all the children who are being detained until a solution has been reached.
Ahmed Bedier of the Islamic Society of Tampa Bay Area said it was part of the Muslim faith to “protect the young – the children” and that it emphasised “the importance of keeping families connected.”
He said that there were hundreds of Muslim families who are prepared to host the children.
Watch video:
https://youtu.be/H2iJmZWeotg
Transcript:
“Our religious faith calls upon us to protect the young, to protect children and emphasises the importance of keeping families connected.
In fact, there is a strong tradition in our faith that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had once said: There’s a grave punishment for the person that separates a child from their mother.
And in that spirit, we’re coming forward to offer a solution to the crisis right here at the Islamic Society of Tampa Bay Area. We are stepping forward and offering to host all 2,300 migrant children that are currently in detention. All of them.
And this hosting also includes the cost of transportation. We’ve secured the pledges from local community members as well as business individuals that have pledged to cover the cost of the transportation and to bring them here to Tampa Bay
And we have hundreds of Muslim families that are prepared to host these children in their homes at their own cost with the goal that they will be continued to be taken care of and hosted until they can be reunified with their parents and next of kin.
Our ultimate goal is to protect the children. These children continue to be housed and locked up into these detention centres which we find to be unacceptable – some of them as young as 8 months old.
This will be completely self-funded by the community here in Tampa and will not cost the government anything.
What we wanna do is, you know, with this solution we’re calling on the Trump administration as well as the Department of Homeland Security to take immediate steps to release these children and to work out the logistics with us to be able to transport them here to the Tampa Bay Area.”
