The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lawmakers, demonstrators want families to be reunited
MCALLEN, TEXAS — Demonstrators led rallies and protests on 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 also marched in San Diego carrying signs reading “Free the Kids” and “Keep Families Together.”
Florida Sen. Bill Nelson and four of the state’s Democratic House members on Saturday toured the detention center in Homestead where about 100 immigrant children taken from their parents are being held.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told reporters in Homestead that she and Nelson should have been allowed access on Tuesday when they first went to the facility but were turned away. She said being told to come back four days later prevented them as members of Congress from performing their duty to oversee government operations. She said at most they should have been kept out for a few hours.
Rep. Darren Soto said the decision by the facility’s administrators to deny Nelson and Wasserman Schultz access earlier made him wonder what they were hiding.
Those three plus Reps. Frederica Wilson and Ted Deutch took 50 red, white and blue balloons with them inside. Wilson said the balloons were to show the children that the American people care about them.
Outside a border patrol facility in McAllen, Texas, protesters temporarily blocked a bus carrying immigrants and shouted “Shame! Shame!” at border agents.
In Washington, D.C. on Friday, a coalition that includes members of Latino organizations and immigrant rights groups rallied outside the Justice Department to protest family separations at the border, and another rally was held at the Department of Homeland Security.
The demonstrations were among several on the border issue to be held across the Washington region.
Krupskaya Elliott of the Virginia Legal Aid Justice Center was among dozens of activists gathered in the rain at Justice to speak out against the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Elliott, who came here from Nicaragua 13 years ago, said she could not imagine being separated from her two children.
The demonstrations came days after the Trump administration reversed course in the face of public and political outrage and had authorities stop separating immigrant families caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.