I humbly reach out to the only faction of Americans I know of who have the ear of the administration and who care about children: my brothers and sisters in Christ who attend Evangelical churches. It seems clear that we are in the midst of a profound humanitarian crisis and that children are being forced to suffer in terrible ways. Maybe it was never supposed to be this way; maybe the system just got overwhelmed. But this is a disaster. Children are programmed to think any separation from a parent or a caregiver is a life-or-death situation. I keep imagining one of these children having a dream that he’s home, with his mother and brothers and sisters, but then waking up to see he’s still in a terrible place. If Evangelical Christians stood up for these children, things could change in the camps very quickly.

I especially appeal to powerful Evangelical leaders like Rick Warren, who have a heart for the immigrant. Warren famously said, “A Good Samaritan doesn’t stop and ask the injured person, ‘Are you legal or illegal?’” The political problems and policy debates that brought us to this situation are not the point right now; the point is that children are cold and filthy and frightened and we can stop it, or at least greatly improve their situation.

I ask the pastors to request of the administration that all of us—the volunteers and charitable givers of all faiths and of no faith, the army of us who are so eager to help these children—can have access to the sites.