Speaking Out

Benicio Del Toro on Trump: “What’s the Morality Inside This Monster?”

The Oscar winner and star of Sicario: Day of the Soldado says he’s horrified to see immigrant children ripped away from their parents at the U.S. border.
Benicio Del Toro attends the New York screening of Sicario Day Of The Soldado.
Benicio Del Toro attends the New York screening of Sicario Day Of The Soldado.By Theo Wargo/WireImage.

“I am proud to have played many roles from Mexico,” said Benicio Del Toro, an actor synonymous with playing brooding and conflicted men, on Monday night. From Traffic in 2000 to his latest film, Sicario: Day of the Soldado—the sequel to the critically lauded 2015 film Sicario, which just held its New York premiere—Del Toro also has a lot of experience playing roles involved in the drug wars on the U.S.-Mexico border. “I have strong feelings of love and support toward Mexico,” the Oscar-winning actor continued. “It’s heartbreaking to hear what is happening there. They should not separate the children from their parents. It’s immoral.”

The actor, a native of Puerto Rico, was referring to President Donald Trump’s extreme “zero-tolerance” policy on illegal immigration, which has resulted in nearly 2,000 children being forcibly removed from their undocumented parents as they sought asylum in the U.S.

“This is more than politics—this is human rights, and a human condition that children should never be taken away from their parents,” Del Toro said on the Soldado red carpet. “I believe in the rule of law, and the laws of every country should be respected, but there’s no reason to separate children from their mom and dad. Why can’t they just hold them together? I am horrified.”

The actor, a father to a six-year-old daughter, also spoke out against the Trump administration’s policy of sending those separated children to mass detention centers. In recent days, reports have revealed horrific conditions inside those facilities, such as a former Walmart in Brownsville, Texas, where nearly 1,500 immigrant children are currently being held.

“I don’t understand what’s going on with the United States government,” Del Toro added. “I think this is going to change the world in a bad way. There’s a sense of sadness because of this. It’s cruel. What’s the morality inside this monster for separating children from their parents? I don’t know. The bottom line: this has to stop.”