Washington, D.C. — Marking day 18 of the government shutdown, President Donald J. Trump is expected to speak live from the Oval Office tonight to defend his demand for Congressional funding for a wall along the southern border of the United States.

In anticipation of tonight’s nationwide address, Michelle Brané, director of the Migrant Rights and Justice program at the Women’s Refugee Commission, issued the following statement:

“We can expect more of the same tonight from the president — more lies and more attempts to betray women and children seeking safety at our border. Since coming into power, this administration has enacted a calculated campaign of chaos by dismantling programs proven successful in helping both asylum-seekers and migrants maneuver the U.S. immigration system, only to replace them with policies that by design created the very crisis the president will decry tonight.

“From his ‘zero tolerance’ policy, to refusing access to those arriving at ports of entry and shutting the border at Tijuana and along the southern border, to his obsession with ending protections for unaccompanied minors such as the ongoing attempts to dismantle the Flores Settlement Agreement and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), President Trump is hell-bent on using the executive office to destroy families and put lives of children at risk.

“His policies, thus far, have resulted in nearly 3,000 families being ripped apart, children being caged like animals, children being put at great risk of trafficking, and dead children at the U.S. border. The president has closed our ports of entry to asylum-seekers which is driving families and children seeking protection into more dangerous paths. Tonight, we fully expect him to continue selling his campaign of chaos to the American people by claiming a need to close loopholes in immigration programs such as Flores and TVPRA and by citing a crisis that is of his own creation as evidence of the need for a wall.

“Children and adults escaping violence are not benefiting from any loopholes, nor do they pose a threat to border security. The United States has a long history of protecting the persecuted and a clear obligation under domestic and international laws not to return women, children, and others to places where they fear persecution or to return children into the hands of traffickers.

“We need humane immigration policies that protect families seeking safety, not ideology that threatens lives.”