Immigrant-rights marchers rally in Milwaukee and nation.
Hardline immigration policies bring a chorus of critics into the streets
In the blistering heat Saturday afternoon, thousands of demonstrators filled Wisconsin Avenue in downtown Milwaukee to protest President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies that left more than 2,000 children separated from their parents at the U.S. Mexico border in recent months.
Marchers at the “Families Belong Together” rally, one of hundreds across the country, joined a growing chorus of critics calling on Trump to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that’s been a focal point of the controversy.
“I want to tell the government to abolish ICE, reunify families and respect immigrants because they are the ones who built this country,” said Gabriela Riveros, a demonstrator from St. Francis.
The few cars that could get through Wisconsin Avenue honked their horns in support of the demonstrators, sometimes drowning out their speeches.
State Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa, a
Democrat representing Milwaukee’s south side, called on the crowd to stand in solidarity with immigrants who have been detained at the border.
“We can try to say it’s not our fight because it’s all the way down to the U.S.-Mexico border,” she told them. “But we are here because we feel a responsibility to stand with our brothers and sisters at the border, to stand with those babies, those children who are separated from their families.”
The boisterous protest was in sharp contrast to a morning rally in the North Shore suburb of Shorewood. There, several hundred protesters — many carrying signs in the sweltering heat — quietly marched from the Village Hall to a park overlooking Lake Michigan, kicking off a series of rallies planned in cities across the state.
“I have five children, so this issue is really upsetting to me. I believe it’s utter cruelty to separate children from their parents,” said Erin Cassidente of Menomonee Falls, who turned out with members of her Mennonite church.
“As a country, we need to treat people better.”
Several other rallies were planned throughout the day, including Green Bay, Madison, Kenosha and elsewhere.
In Green Bay, about 700 protesters descended along the Fox River in the city’s downtown, while in the Fox Valley, at least a couple hundred took to the streets of Appleton and about 100 marched in Oshkosh.
Meanwhile in central Wisconsin, about 180 protesters marched down Division Street in Stevens Point and another 100 stood in a circle in Wausau.
There also was a rally in Wisconsin Rapids Saturday and another planned in Sheboygan on Sunday.
The Shorewood march took on a somber tone — there were no chants or slogans shouted over a bullhorn — as demonstrators sought to convey the seriousness of their concerns.
Shorewood resident Ken Cole said the Trump administration’s policies, which now call for immigrant families to be detained together while their cases are pending, remind him of the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II, where thousands of people were held because the U.S. government feared they might be loyal to Japan.
That’s “a path we cannot go down again because we see how it ends,” Cole said.
“There’s a litany of things going on now that are not ‘right or left’ politically. It just comes back to our compassion and humanity. I have a concern that we are losing sight of that in all of the political back and forth.”
Rabbi Michal Woll, with Congregation Shir Hadash in Milwaukee, said immigration issues resonate with her on a personal level.
“If my grandparents weren’t given passage to this country, their names would be on a memorial rather than Ellis Island. And I am a mother; you cannot take my children away,” Woll said.
Susie Stein of Milwaukee had similar sentiments about her immigrant grandparents.
“They made a life here, and I am the beneficiary of that. Other people should have the same right,” Stein said.
Ray Gingerich of Greendale carried a sign that said in three languages, “No matter where you are from, we are glad you are our neighbor.”
He has the same sign on his lawn, and he recounted how a Muslim woman passing by one day reacted as she read the words in Arabic.
“There were tears coming down her cheeks,” Gingerich said.
About 600 rallies were planned for Saturday in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., potentially drawing hundreds of thousands of people to protest the Trump administration’s policy on immigration.
In the nation’s capital, thousands poured into Lafayette Square, across from the White House, to chant “We care” and “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA.”
Protesters waved signs in English and Spanish. The slogan on one English sign demanded, “Where are the children?”
One sign, sounding like a mother’s stern rebuke, read in Spanish, “Trump te calmas o te calmo.” Translation: “Calm down, Trump, or I will calm you down.”
Another sign, directed at the president’s wife and daughter, said, “Melania & Ivanka, stop the child abuse.”
While President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump avoided the chants in Washington, the protests followed them to their weekend retreat in Bedminster, N.J.
Only a few miles from Trump National Golf Course, more than 100 protesters lined the side of a major New Jersey highway waving antiTrump signs and chanting, “Where are the children!”
The rallies have been organized by the Families Belong Together Coalition, which includes the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the Leadership Conference, MoveOn.org and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Cassidente, of Menomonee Falls, said she hopes the marches make a difference.
“If nothing more than to show marginalized people that there are people who care about them. Whether actual change comes from one march or another, I just feel we have to keep getting out there and showing our government and each other that decency needs to prevail,” she added.
USA Today and Wisconsin’s USA Today Network contributed to this report.