Hundreds of thousands of people in major cities and small towns across America took to the streets Saturday to protest against the Trump administration's immigration policies.
The rallies ranged from large, boisterous demonstrations � thousands clogged the Brooklyn Bridge in New York � to more modest events, like a protest that drew about 200 people to a street corner in West Hartford, Conn.
Some marchers had joined other protests against Trump administration policies, but some were newcomers. For Debbie Greenspan, the protest 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."
In Washington, D.C., thousands of people marched through the Washington Mall d to rally across from the White House. Actress Diane Guerrero, star of "Orange is the New Black" and other television series, recounted her own immigration experience as she addressed the crowd and denounced the separation of families.
"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."
President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" policy has come under attack 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 few of the families involved.
Administration officials revealed in court Friday that rather than separate families, they now plan to hold them together in indefinite detention.
In Los Angeles, tens of thousands of demonstrators joined the Families Belong Together rally just before noon in front of City Hall.
Jimmy "Taboo" Gomez of the musical group Black Eyed Peas helped get things started by performing the hit song "Where is the Love?" to a sea of thousands wearing white clothing and bearing signs that declared America is a "nation of immigrants" and that the country should "build bridges not walls."
The Black Eyed Peas wrote the song in 2001 after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Gomez told the crowd. "And so many years later, in 2018, we're still asking the same questions: Where is the love?" he said.
This demonstration is about the power of the people, he said, as the crowd sang along.
Antonio Lopez arrived at 10 a.m. from his home in east Los Angeles with a large American flag and a sign that predicted "lots of work for the lawyers of this country."
He said Trump deserves to be jailed for his immigration policies.
"Donald Trump is kidnapping those kids," he said into a megaphone. "It's a violation of the Constitution."
Speakers demanded "zero tolerance" for the administration's policies of separating families, jailing asylum-seekers and violating immigrants' due process rights. When one speaker led the crowd in a chant of "Trump, where's your heart?" Lopez said, "No lo tiene" _ he doesn't have one.
Litzy Del Valle, 17, and five of her friends woke up at 6 a.m. to secure good spots at the rally. They wore matching shirts that said "No somos criminales" _ we aren't criminals. She said she and her friends, all of whom are the children of Mexican immigrants, identify with the children separated from their parents at the border.
Del Valle said her parents came to the U.S. in 1986 fleeing poverty in Puebla, Mexico. Her father told her he arrived dehydrated after trekking through the desert.
He now works in construction, and her mother is a cashier.
Del Valle, who recently graduated from Panorama High School in the San Fernando Valley, said her parents have talked increasingly since Trump's election about returning to Puebla, where her father has been paying off a plot of land.
As she prepares to start at L.A. Valley College in the fall, Del Valle said she worries that her parents won't get to witness her successes.
"They never got to become what they wanted," she said. "To think I have a home and a roof over my head because of what they did _ it inspires me to build a better America so no one has to go through that."
Armony Share, 86, of Sherman oaks, decried the Trump administration for what appears its lack of compassion for others who are fleeing crime and persecution in their home countries.
"The Jews were turned away (from America) when they were able to escape from Europe in World War II," she said. "Are we doing the same thing to these people? When you're against one group you're against all of them."
Share's parents, who are Russian and Polish, fled the region's brewing anti-Semitism during the 1920s. She said she was born in Mexico and immigrated to the U.S. in 1941.
She attended the rally with her daughter-in-law and grandson. Her son, who has been working in Oaxaca, landed at noon and was headed straight to the rally from Los Angeles International Airport.
Share said she doesn't expect the Trump administration to hear the message of Saturday's marches. But she said it's important to let the rest of the world know that people will continue to speak up.
"If you're silent, you're complicit," she said.
Dozens of organizations joined forces to plan the marches. In Los Angeles, organizers included the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.
Mayor Eric Garcetti, Sen. Kamala Harris and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is also a gubernatorial candidate, were among several officials who spoke at the rally.
"When we have children in cages crying for their mommies and daddies, we know we are better than this," Harris told the crowd. "When we have over 2,000 children separated from their parents _ because we took them _ we know we are better than this. 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.
"Years from now, our children, our grandchildren" are going to question us, she said. "And that question is going to be: 'Where were you at that moment?' Our answer is going to be what we did, what streets we marched. ... We will not relent and not tire because we are better than this."
Singer-songwriter John Legend earlier took the stage to perform a new song written for the occasion called "Preach," in which he urged people to action, singing that it's not enough to preach. Before he performed, he spoke to the crowd about empathizing with those who struggle to make it to America seeking a better life for themselves and their children.
"We see them as human beings who deserve the chance to flourish and be the best versions of themselves they can be," Legend told the crowd. "If you are committed to this kind of love, it means you believe in justice. But it's not easy. It requires you see through the eyes of another. You can't just talk about it, or read about it. You've got to do something!"
Organizers say family separation is just one of many immigration policies under the Trump administration that they take issue with.
"Trump and his administration have been systematically criminalizing immigration and immigrants," organizers wrote on the event website, "from revoking Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to ramping up intimidating ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) tactics."
The November elections were a constant at theme at protests all over the country. In Dallas, marchers carried signs reading, "November is coming."
For many marchers said the issue was deeply personal.
One of the protesters in West Hartford was Christine Brea, who carried a sign reading, "Hate does not make America great. Families belong together." Brea came in part, she said, because her grandmother was a Navajo separated from her parents in childhood.
"It seems history is repeating itself," Brea said. "I'm heartbroken."
