Thousands join nationwide rallies to protest Trump’s immigration policies

the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shielded from deportation young immigrants brought here illegally when they were children.

“Human rights should have no border!” one protester yelled at the start of the L.A. rally, as children waved signs that read: “Familia, si! Trump, no, no, no!” and “Love cannot be stopped.”

“When we have children in cages crying for their mommies and daddies, we know we are better than this,” Sen. Kamala Harris, D-calif., told the crowd. “When we know those children will suffer lifelong trauma, and that this is not reflective of a civil society, we know we are better than this.”

Many marchers were veterans of protests against other Trump administration policies, including the Women’s March and the March for Science, but some were newly energized to speak up. For Debbie Greenspan, a protest Saturday in Hollywood, Fla., was the first demonstration she ever attended.

“I just can’t bear babies being taken from their parents or even putting the whole family in jail,” Greenspan said. “I mean, what is wrong with these people? It’s beyond comprehension.” At its peak, several hundred people attended the Families Belong Together rally to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policies at Cannon Park in Carlsbad on Saturday.

In Washington, thousands of people braved intense heat to march through the National Mall and rally across from the White House. Actress Diane Guerrero, star of the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black,” recounted her own immigration experience before the crowd.

“Do we want to be an America that values children and families?” she asked. “This time the stakes are too visible ... too well-documented to be ignored.”

Trump’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy has come under fire in recent

weeks after it resulted in the separation of more than 2,000 children from their parents or guardians crossing the border. Trump last week announced that the administration would end the policy, but the government has reunited only a small handful of the families involved.

Administration officials revealed Friday in court filings before a federal judge in Los Angeles that rather than separate families, they now plan to hold parents and children together in indefinite detention as they await their court dates.

Jarrod Warren Ramos swore a “legal oath” in court documents to kill a writer for The Capital newspaper, whose staff had long endured his violent rants. A lawyer warned a judge of Ramos’ “violent fetishes.” And he was convicted of harassing a woman who successfully placed three restraining orders against him.

Yet the 38-year-old Laurel man accused of gunning down five employees of the Annapolis newspaper Thursday – after barricading the exit door as part of a pre-planned attack – legally purchased the pump-action shotgun he allegedly used in the rampage, authorities said Friday.

Ramos made his first appearance in court Friday after being charged with five counts of first-degree murder in the targeted attack, staring impassively and blinking at the camera as he appeared over video link from a county jail.

– Appeal-democrat news services