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Popular children’s educator Ms. Rachel visited Delaney Hall, an immigration detention facility in Newark, N.J., on Monday, to visit families she said had been “terrorized” by immigration enforcement.
The YouTuber, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, shared a video of herself speaking with the daughter of a detained man in the facility, who emotionally recounted her visit with him. Accurso wrote that the man had lived in the United States for 20 years and worked as a truck driver. She encouraged followers to donate to the family.
“Please let their kind, loving father be with his family again,” she wrote in the post.
“How is ripping this family apart and taking him from his children, one with severe special needs, OK?” she asked. “I spoke with many traumatized kids who are scared to sleep at night. Why are we terrorizing children?”
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She also posted a video of herself singing alongside families and immigration activists to a song with the lyrics, “Together we’ll sing down the walls everywhere… together we’ll sing until everyone’s free.”
Accurso tagged the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice in the posts.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson strongly pushed back on those claims in a statement to Fox News Digital, saying that critics of immigration enforcement have ignored children exploited by smugglers and sex traffickers who crossed the border under the Biden administration.
The spokesperson also disputed claims of family separation, saying, “ICE does not separate families. Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates.”
The spokesperson also said that DHS “has led the efforts to rescue and stop the exploitation of the 450,000 unaccompanied children the Biden administration lost or placed with unvetted sponsors” and is “laser focused on protecting children and will continue to work with federal, state, and local law enforcement to reunite children with their families.”
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On Wednesday, Accurso also shared she was in Washington, D.C. to urge members of Congress “to end family detention and separation and unite in not wanting to be people who harm, abuse, traumatize and terrify children.”
Accurso said she delivered letters from children, whose parents were in detention centers, to both Republicans and Democrats.
“This is not a partisan issue,” she said. “We will all look back on this time and remember if we stood with children being abused in detention centers or with corporations making millions and harming them with our tax dollars.”
Accurso’s visit to Delaney comes just days after anti-ICE agitators were arrested outside the facility on Friday for allegedly assaulting law enforcement officers, engaging in obstruction and threats, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
This isn’t the first time Accurso has visited children with parents detained in immigration facilities. Accurso visited children at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas in March.
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In an interview with NBC News at the time, she embraced the label that she was being “political.”
“I am political,” Accurso previously said. “It’s political to believe that children are worthy of love and care, and that every child is equal, and that our care shouldn’t stop at what we look like, our family, at our religion, at a border.”
The visit is the latest example of the YouTube star’s political activism. Accurso has been outspoken about her support for Gaza children and has been a fierce critic of the Israel-Hamas war. She’s garnered criticism for citing the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry’s casualty statistics in her social media posts.
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In January, she apologized for liking an antisemitic comment from one of her followers, and posted a video afterward saying it was accidental.
“I do not support language that targets or harms the Jewish community or any community,” she told Fox News Digital at the time. “Antisemitism and hate of any kind have no place in my life or my work. Everything I do is rooted in kindness, inclusion, and care for all humanity. Those values guide me every day, and I remain firmly committed to them.”
Accurso and ICE did not immediately return Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News’ Lindsay Kornick and Madison Colombo contributed to this report.
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