THOUSANDS MARCH IN RALLIES
Bay Area protesters take part in national Families Belong Together demonstrations
Calling on President Donald Trump to reunite more than 2,000 immigrant children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, Bay Area residents on Saturday joined hundreds of thousands of people across the nation to protest — some for the first time — a policy many say is a haunting reminder of America’s darkest moments in history.
Braving scorching heat, local protesters delivered a clear and loud message to the president: “Families belong together.”
Wearing white clothing and with small children in tow, crowds also descended on the nation’s
capital, at a detention center for migrant children in Texas and in downtown Los Angeles, among more than 700 other locations.
Descendants of Holocaust survivors and Japanese immigrants joined in solidarity across the nation, pointing to the stunning similarities between today’s climate and that which led to the World War II genocide of Jews and internment of Japanese-Americans.
For the many local protesters who had never marched before or held a poster in their hands, the audio and images of crying children begging for their parents marked a breaking point.
“I’ve been upset every day since I heard they were stealing people’s children,” said 53-year-old Suzanne Brown, who brought her 5-year-old daughter, Anyssa, to the San Francisco march. There, up to 20,000 people gathered at Mission Dolores Park and peacefully marched to Civic Center Plaza.
Brown, a black Democrat who lives in Oakland, said she’s never marched before but when she heard the audio of detained children crying for their parents, she had to do something.
Christina Luna, 35, and her son, Mateo, 7, came from San Martin to their first march, in San Jose. Separating parents from children feels like an attack on families and “our spirit,” she said.
“I have children and to think about being separated from them
is terrible,” Luna said. “Just the trauma and the effect that’s going to have on them for the rest of their lives is terrible. I need to express my outrage somehow.”
There were no reported counter-protests at the many Bay Area rallies, but counter-protesters clashed with crowds in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Phoenix and Boston, among other cities.
Under Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, which aims to prosecute anyone who illegally crosses the border, more than 2,000 children were separated from their parents, many sent to shelters for migrant children in different states across the country. The vast majority of the families fled violence and turmoil in Central America and are asking for asylum in the U.S.
Trump has since signed an executive order halting the separation of families and a federal judge this week ordered immigration officials to reunite all of the children with their parents in 30 days, or within 14 days if the children are younger than 6.
But even as they work to reunite these families, a recent court filing shows the Justice Department plans to keep migrant families in detention instead of releasing them as they work through immigration proceedings.
Trump doubled down on his call to rein in illegal immigration Saturday, tweeting, “When people come into our country illegally, we must IMMEDIATELY escort them back out without going through years of legal maneuvering. Our laws are the dumbest anywhere in the world.”
For San Jose resident Tomio Hayase-Izu, 25, the current political climate is reminiscent of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
“Even though it was a long time ago and some of the circumstances are different, there are a lot of parallels with today,” said Hayase-Izu, who attended the San Jose rally at City Hall with his father, where about 1,000 protesters took over the plaza.
“There are a lot of people that want to close their eyes and throw their heads in the sand and pretend all the racism in the past is gone and behind us. Once you start learning about what happened, it’s very easy for it to start happening again even if it’s under a different flag, under a different administration.”
It was a sentiment that echoed across Bay Area rallies, as protesters drew comparisons to internment camps of years past.
“This is happening again and we need to work together to make sure this stops and to make sure our history is being told, the history of the oppression of people of color,”
said Tomoko Ha, an educator from Castro Valley who attended the Concord rally at Todos Santos Plaza with her 9-month-old son strapped to her chest. She held two signs, one which read: “Japanese Americans say NO to racism and xenophobia.”
Ha, who belongs to the Diablo Valley chapter of the national civil rights group Japanese American Citizens League, said being a new mother hits especially close to home.
“Just the idea of your child being taken away from you...” she said, looking away and her voice trailing off. “That’s saying to me that you’re not human and you’re less than. That’s the message that I get as a mom, that you have no regard for human life.”
Nearby, in Berkeley, state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, called Trump’s executive order a “smokescreen.”
“What have we come to when we rip babies from their mother’s arms?” she said.
Many protesters said they won’t back down until all of the families are back together.
Kelly Flores, a biochemistry student at UC Davis, attended the rally with her cousin, Monika Infante, a psychology student at Sonoma State University. It was the first time Flores participated in any type of demonstration, but Infante said she’s been involved in anti-Trump protests at her school.
“I’m Latina so I take this really personally,” Flores said. “I remember when I was younger and I was traumatized by (ICE) coming to Concord. I can’t imagine these kids being separated from their parents and not know if they’ll ever be reunited.”
Infante said she felt compelled to speak up on behalf of her community.
Her parents immigrated from Oaxaca, she said.
“You know how immigrants have a fear of
speaking up? I don’t have that fear,” Infante said. “I have to speak up for my own people.”