RALLIES FOR REUNIFICATION
People gathered across Arizona to protest immigration policy
Hundreds of people joined rallies across Arizona on Saturday to protest after weeks of turmoil over the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy that forced the separation of families at the United States’ southern border.
While the main rally was held in Washington, D.C., along with large rallies in other cities across the country, dozens of protests were held across the state in sweltering temperatures.
Officials estimated that more than 800 people gathered outside the state Capitol building in Phoenix. Many carried signs urging the administration to bring families back together.
They were met with small groups of counterprotesters with megaphones. Some engaged, but the event was mostly peaceful.
Rose Garcia, a Tempe resident, carried a sign that said, “Don’t turn your back on family values.” The 54-year-old Anthem resident said she came to the Capitol to be a voice for separated families.
“It’s cruel, it’s inhumane to separate migrant lives. You can only imagine what the parents are going through,” she said. “Families are meant to be together. You don’t split them up.”
Protesters block port of entry in Nogales
Participants at the rally in Nogales, one of two along the Arizona-Mexico border, temporary blocked access to the DeConcini port of entry.
They sought to highlight the plight of Central American families that trekked through Mexico and are camped out in Nogales, Sonora, waiting to claim asylum in the United States.
More than 200 people marched from the Nogales Border Plaza to the DeConcini port of entry. But after reaching the Grand Avenue and Crawford Street intersection, they stopped, blocking incoming and outbound traffic during the normally busy Saturday afternoon.
As they marched down the blocked vehicle lanes to the port facilities, they chanted, “Let them in,” in reference to the dozens of families, mostly from Central America and southern Mexico, waiting their turn to talk to an immigration officer at the Nogales crossing.
“This seems real familiar,” Presbyterian Pastor John Fife told participants. Fife is commonly referred to as the father of the modern-day sanctuary movement. He was convicted of violating federal immigration laws for sheltering Central American immigrants from deportation in the 1980s.
“Forty years ago, we saw exactly what you’re seeing now at the border,” he said. “Refugees and children and families coming, seeking some refuge, seeking asylum … and when they arrived at this border, the United States government said, ‘You’re illegals.’”
President Donald Trump issued an executive order to end the separation of children from their parents on June 20 after the practice received widespread criticism.
A federal judge has since ordered the federal government to reunite children under the age of 5 with their parents within 14 days; older children must be reunited within 30 days. Much of what will happen next remains unclear.
The migrant families in Nogales, Sonora, have been waiting, sometimes up to two weeks, to present their claims. Protesters denounced those lag times, and asked U.S. Customs and Border Protection to come up with a better system.
CBP officials have repeatedly said they are working as expeditiously as possible, but that they are limited by constraints in space and resources.
In Phoenix, U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona told the crowd it was their actions that left the administration with no choice but to curtail the separation policy.
“It was you. It was you in the streets, you going to the newspapers, you calling. It was all of our non-profits, it was all of our churches, saying this is not Christian, this is not Muslim, this is not Jewish, this is not humane,” said Gallego, a Democrat. “We will not allow this in the name of America. That’s what finally stopped it.”
But immigration advocates are focusing on the thousands of children who are still in foster homes and detention centers in both Arizona and across the country as they await their turn to be reunited.
Knowing the pain of separation
Jesus Lucero, a 19-year-old undocumented immigrant, said he knew intimately what it is like to be separated from the ones he loves. He walked through Armory Park in Tucson in a black shirt that read: “I support the undocumented community.”
About 500 people gathered at the park in Tucson for the rally there.
“When my dad got detained, a very similar thing happened,” he said. “My siblings were separated from my dad. They cried often, had post-traumatic stress. This is something I have personal ties to, this is something I have experienced within my own house.”
Lucero and his family left Mexico when he was young and have faced sep-
“Families are meant to be together. You don’t split them up.” Rose Garcia Tempe resident
aration several times. It started when his family crossed the border, leaving their community and everything they knew.
“We had to leave them behind in pursuit of a better life, which, of course, was never guaranteed and has, to this day, forced us to face a lot of things like this family separation, my uncle being deported, my aunt being deported when she was helping people get safely from the border to Phoenix,” he said.
“She’s not allowed back in the country, so her children who are all U.S. citizens ... that’s something her children have to face a lot.”
Counterprotesters: ‘Deport Families Together’
About 25 individuals attended a counterprotest at the Capitol led by members of Patriot Movement AZ, a small but vocal activist group.
They walked the sidewalk perimeter around the east lawn of the Senate building armed with signs reading “Deport Families Together,” “Blame their Parents” and “Legal Immigrants Always Welcome.”
Jennifer Harrison said she thinks the majority of asylum seekers are coming for opportunities, jobs and education — which she felt should favor Americans. She acknowledged individuals who are “truly seeking asylum” have a place in existing law.
Harrison is a member of the Patriot Movement AZ, which describes itself as “a grassroots organization” of “Constitutional Activists who believe that we must defend American values against the progressive Leftist and Globalist Agenda.”
When asked by reporters, three of the counterprotesters said they support legal immigration.
‘We have all feared this’
Laura Rodriguez, a 33-year-old Phoenix resident who was at the Capitol protest, said the issue hits close to home.
“My husband was born in Mexico, and he’s a citizen, but if this happened at a different time,” she said, her voice trailing off.
She said the separations “are motivated by racism and nothing else.”
Rose Garcia, a Tempe resident, carried a sign that said, “It does not say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty.”
“I’m actually from Mexico, this could have easily even been me, but I was lucky enough to get a green card,” she said. “I know the fear and anxiety of knowing at one point you can be separated. We have all feared this.”
‘We do belong here’
Rigo Gonzalez, one of the organizers of the Phoenix protest, said this was the first time he had spoken in front of a crowd like this.
Gonzalez told the crowd about his experience as a young immigrant. He was 2 years old when his father came to the U.S., and his mother followed the next year. He didn’t see them until he arrived in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant at age 4.
He recalled a time at a supermarket with his parents and sister — he was about 6 years old — when his father got pulled into the back and questioned, out of their sight, for 90 minutes.
“I ran through the whole gamut of emotions,” Gonzalez told the crowd. “I was scared, I was angry, I was confused, I was sad. It felt like an eternity, and I knew it had something to do with his immigration status.
“Ninety minutes and it felt like an eternity. I can only imagine what those children down there are feeling when it’s not 90 minutes, when it’s days, weeks, months.”
Gonzalez said he joined the Marine Corps and then got his master’s degree, but said there’s a segment of the population that doesn’t think he belongs here.
“I could come home with a Medal of Honor, it doesn’t matter. They think I don’t belong here. They think people that look like me I don’t belong here, they think people with my kind of experiences don’t belong here. They think the kids down there don’t belong here.
“It’s time we tell them yes, we do belong here,” he said to thundering applause from the crowd.
Officials estimated that more than 800 people gathered outside the state Capitol building in Phoenix. Many carried signs urging the administration to bring families back together.