Refugees ‘Choosing Life Over Death’ in Bid to Enter US - Civil Rights Leader

EL PASO, TEXAS (Sputnik) - The United States must meet the needs of refugees at the US-Mexico border who are trying to choose life over the likely death that awaits them back home, iconic Latina civil rights leader Dolores Huerta told Sputnik.

"We have to follow the [US] refugee laws… The refugees are escaping death, escaping terror. They are choosing life over death," Huerta said. "They’re choosing that life here in the United States of America and we got to respond to that. We got to welcome them. We got to take care of them."

US President Donald Trump came under fire over the weekend for saying that anyone who enters the United States illegally should be immediately deported without due process.

READ MORE: US Plans to House Migrants at Military Bases Amid Trump Crackdown

Huerta said she believes that recent demonstrations against Trump’s immigration policy have been having an impact. The US public, the civil rights leader added, must send a message to Trump that he is not above the law. The United States must return to being a nation with compassion, Huerta said.

As a country built by immigrants, the United States must not turn away refugees who face death and terror from whence they fled, she added.

Last week, Trump signed an executive order to halt the separation of families apprehended at the border after images of kids in cages went viral. A couple thousand immigrant children are still separated from their parents, according to the US Health and Human Services agency, as a result of the administration’s "zero-tolerance" immigration policy.

READ MORE: Trump Demands Immediate Deportations, Warns of 'Invasion' by Illegal Migrants

Huerta, an iconic Mexican-American activist, rose to fame as a civil rights leader in the 1960s by fighting to improve social and economic conditions for farm workers. She has also been a strong advocate for immigrant and women’s rights. In 2012, Huerta received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from then-President Barack Obama.