PROTESTERS, DEMOCRATS CALL FOR REUNITING IMMIGRANT FAMILIES
MCALLEN, Texas — Demonstrators led rallies and protests Saturday to decry the separation of immigrant parents from their children by U. S. border authorities, while Democratic lawmakers said they aren’t convinced the Trump administration has any real plan to reunite them.
Hundreds of people rallied near a Homestead, Florida, facility where immigrant children are being held. Demonstrators marched in San Diego carrying signs reading “Free the Kids” and “Keep Families Together” and in other California cities.
Outside a Border Patrol processing facility in McAllen, Texas, protesters carrying American flags temporarily blocked a bus carrying immigrants and shouted “Shame! Shame!” at border agents.
“Something has to be done,” said Gabriel Rosales, the League of United Latin American Citizens’ national vice president for the southwest. “This is not something that’s OK in America today. And ours is to show those kids that they have people here in the United States that care.”
In recent weeks, more than 2,300 children were taken from their families under a “zerotolerance” policy in which people entering the U. S. illegally face prosecution. While the family separations were ended, confusion has ensued, with parents left searching for their children.
The administration says it will now seek to detain immigrant families during their immigration proceedings, which has also stoked an outcry.
A group of 25 Democratic lawmakers who toured the border facility in McAllen, Texas, said they hadn’t seen a clear federal system for reuniting those who were split up. Everyone — even infants — is assigned “A” or alien numbers, only to be given different identification numbers by other federal agencies.
They described seeing children sleeping behind bars, on concrete floors and under emergency “mylar” heat- resistant blankets.
“There are still thousands of children who are out there right now untethered to their parents and no coherent system to fix that,” Rep. Joe Courtney, a Democrat from Connecticut, told reporters after the tour.
In Las Vegas on Saturday at the Nevada GOP convention, President Donald Trump said his people are “in a very difficult situation” but that the immigration problem should have been solved years ago.
He made a plea for more Republicans in Congress, calling Democrats “obstructionists” and saying they don’t want to help solve the problem.
Said Trump: “So we’re being very, very tough at the border.”