Liberal activists, parents and first-time protesters motivated by accounts of children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border plan to rally in hundreds of cities nationwide Saturday to press President Trump’s administration to reunite the families quickly. More than 600 marches could draw hundreds of thousands of people across the country, from immigrant-friendly cities like Los Angeles and New York City — where a march has started — to conservative Appalachia and Wyoming under the banner Families Belong Together.
Though many who show up will be seasoned anti-Trump demonstrators, others will be new to immigration activism, including parents who say they feel compelled to show up after heart-wrenching accounts of children forcibly taken from their families as they crossed the border illegally. In Portland, Oregon, for example, several stay-at-home moms have organized their first rally while caring for young kids.
“I’m not a radical, and I’m not an activist,” said Kate Sharaf, a Portland co-organizer. “I just reached a point where I felt I had to do more.”
Immigrant advocacy groups say they’re thrilled — and surprised — to see the issue gaining traction among those not tied to immigration.
“Honestly, I am blown away. I have literally never seen Americans show up for immigrants like this,” said Jess Morales Rocketto, political director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which represents nannies, housekeepers and caregivers, many of whom are immigrants. “We just kept hearing over and over again, if it was my child, I would want someone to do something.”
On Saturday morning, thousands opposed to Mr. Trump’s controversial policy of separating migrant families were descending on Boston for two planned protests. A “Rally against Family Separation” begins with a morning march from City Hall to Boston Common, where a large rally will take place. The protest is timed with other protests nationwide and is also meant to oppose Trump’s ban on travelers from certain Muslim-majority nations. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Joe Kennedy III, both Democrats, will be among the attendees.
The second demonstration starts Saturday afternoon with a march from Wellington Common Park to the South Bay House of Correction, a county jail in Boston which houses undocumented immigrants apprehended by federal officials. Organizers are demanding local government agencies stop cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
In New York, protesters chanted “shame!” and sang “shut detention down!” at the kickoff of a march denouncing the Trump administration’s policy of separating families of people caught crossing the border illegally. Crowds gathered in sweltering 86-degree morning heat at a Manhattan park before a planned march across the Brooklyn Bridge to Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn, near the federal courthouse.
The crowd provided a refrain of “shame” as an organizer ran down a list of people marchers are blaming for the family separations. Among their targets: Mr. Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the agencies Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
Saturday’s rallies nationwide are getting funding and support from the American Civil Liberties Union, MoveOn.org, the National Domestic Workers Alliance and The Leadership Conference. But local organizers are shouldering on-the-ground planning, many of them women relying on informal networks established during worldwide women’s marches on Mr. Trump’s inauguration and its anniversary.
Tyler Houlton, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, welcomed interest in the immigration system and said only Congress has the power to change the law.
“We appreciate that these individuals have expressed an interest in and concern with the critical issue of securing our nation’s borders and enforcing our immigration laws,” Houlton said. “As we have indicated before, the department is disappointed and frustrated by our nation’s disastrous immigration laws and supports action.”
Mr. Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning to show his support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid calls from some Democrats for major changes to immigration enforcement. Tweeting from New Jersey, Mr. Trump said that Democrats “are making a strong push to abolish ICE, one of the smartest, toughest and most spirited law enforcement groups of men and women that I have ever seen.” He urged ICE agents to “not worry or lose your spirit.”
In Portland, Sharaf and other mothers who organized the rally hope to attract 5,000 people. Right-wing activists with the group Patriot Prayer also have a permit to march later in the day Saturday and the Portland Police Bureau said Friday they planned to have a heavy police presence.
Sharaf and co-organizer Erin Conroy have coordinated with immigrant advocacy groups.
“This is not my wheelhouse,” Conroy said. “As far as I’m concerned, this is a national emergency that we all need to be focused on right now.”
That passion is heartening for the broader anti-Trump coalition, which hopes marches will attract people who have otherwise been on the sidelines, said David S. Meyer, a political science professor at the University of California, Irvine, who has authored books on U.S. political protest.
“There are people who have all kinds of other grievances or gripes with the Trump administration and they’re quite happy to use this one as the most productive and salient for the moment,” he said.
Immigration attorney Linda Rivas said groups have met with U.S. authorities, congressional representatives and other leaders to discuss an escalating immigration crackdown that they say began decades ago. But the family separation policy has been a watershed for attracting a broader spectrum of demonstrators, she said.
“To finally have people on board wanting to take action, marching, taking to the streets, it’s been motivating for us as advocates because we have to keep going,” Rivas said.
On Thursday, more than a thousand people and organizations including the ACLU, the ACLU of Texas and United We Dream gathered in Texas to demand that separated families be immediately reunited, the ACLU said in a news release. They gathered in Brownsville, which according to the ACLU is one of the “hardest hit” areas under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy.
“The administration doesn’t have a plan to reunite families. But we have a plan,” said Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas. “We are going to keep fighting. Refugees are welcome here, immigrants are welcome here. We won’t stop until every single child is reunited.”
A demonstrator holding a sign participates in “Keep Families Together” march to protest Trump administration’s immigration policy in Manhattan, New York, U.S., June 30, 2018.
SHANNON STAPLETON / REUTERS
