A progressive political group is launching an ad campaign featuring the now-infamous audio of migrant children crying for their parents in a detention center. The group hopes it moves Americans to vote against Republicans in the midterm elections.
The ad from Progressive Change Campaign Committee features the audio ProPublica published of young kids wailing for their “mamá” and “papá” after having been separated from them at the border as a result of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy.
“This is Trump’s America. Is it yours?” the ad concludes. “Remember in November.”
Starting Friday, the ads will air on MSNBC, CNN and Fox in the Washington, D.C., area, the group’s press secretary, Marissa Barrow, told HuffPost by email.
After more fundraising, the group hopes to expand the ads to “key congressional districts” across the country ― including in California, Nebraska and Kansas, where Republican lawmakers are “supporting Trump’s agenda” on immigration, the group told Mic.
The ad aims to hold President Donald Trump and “the Republicans who enable his racist policies accountable,” Barrow said, noting that it was timed to capitalize on the “public energy” around the family separations and ensure midterm voters don’t forget the sounds of children taken from their parents.
The ads come after days of nationwide outrage reached a fever pitch over the “zero tolerance” policy that refers for criminal prosecution all migrants crossing the border illegally and has led to officials separating over 2,300 children from their parents since May.
It will air just two days after Trump signed an executive order to halt family separations, instead opting to lock up immigrant parents and kids together indefinitely ― a move that has drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers and is likely to draw legal challenges.
“Trump’s executive order does nothing to reunite the nearly 2,500 kids who’ve been separated from their parents or guardians and were placed into ‘tender age’ facilities,” Barrow noted.
“The policy itself was not an accident ― it was an intentional 2018 strategy to excite the racist, anti-immigrant portion of his base,” she added.
Another progressive group launched a separate ad campaign this week also featuring the audio ― a seven-figure campaign funded by liberal “megadonor” Tom Steyer, reported CNN. The goal of that ad was also to mobilize voters before the midterms.
“Now and through November, we must hold [Trump’s] recent actions around the neck of every single Republican in Congress,” Barrow said.