Protests against child separations ripple across nation
At the end of the day, on the east coast at least, we are closing this blog. Here’s a summary of the key events in a hot day of protests against Donald Trump and his hardline immigration policy.
- From New York City and Washington DC to Los Angeles and San Francisco, and in hundreds of cities and towns in between, thousands of Americans protested on Saturday against Trump administration policies that separated more than 2,000 undocumented immigrant children from their families and have left the vast majority of such children still held in federal facilities.
- No official figures for the protests were immediately available, but organizers said they had expected more than 750 events to be held.
- Protesters said they were concerned about many issues, but one message – as intended by organizers – rose above all others: Families Belong Together.
- The protests happened despite oppressive heat. In some cities, the heat index topped 105F (40C).
- Celebrities also came out to rallies to voice their opposition to Trump and his policies, including the singer Alicia Keys, playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, actress America Ferrera, singer John Legend and many more.
- Progressive politicians, among them some potential Democratic candidates for the 2020 presidential nomination, joined protesters and addressed the various crowds. Their main message was simple: vote. With a high-stakes November midterm election approaching – one that could tip the balance of power in Washington – many high-profile politicians gave speeches, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Senator Kamala Harris and Representative Maxine Waters of California, and the Georgia congressman and civil rights movement veteran John Lewis, who spoke to a protest in Atlanta.
- Donald Trump, meanwhile, was at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He was due to begin interviews of potential supreme court nominees. A crowd of around 200 protesters picketed a roadside nearby.
West Coast wrap
We’ll be wrapping up our blog soon, so here are Associated Press reports from events thousands of miles away from the big rallies in Washington and New York:
Thousands of protesters gathered in downtown Los Angeles were addressed by, among others, singer John Legend, congresswoman Maxine Waters (who called for Trump to be impeached) and Senator Kamala Harris. Attendee Robin Jackson noted the “absolute cruelty” of the administration and said she was heartbroken when her parents worked second shifts at night and could not imagine what it would be like for migrant children not to know when their parents were coming back.
Another large crowd gathered in San Francisco, where drums beat and horns played as marchers held flags and signs, some saying “Deport Trump” and “I Really Care, Do You?” Barry Hooper said he attended the protest with his wife and two daughters in order to “let the president know that this is not acceptable”. His seven-year-old daughter, Liliana, clutched a sign she made saying: “Stop the separation”. Marchers arrived at City Hall shortly before noon. Across the bay, hundreds of protesters turned up at a similar rally in Berkeley. Police in both cities said the rallies appeared peaceful and reported no arrests.
Updated
The Associated Press has reported some arrests at the protest in Dallas:
Dallas police say five people have been arrested outside a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) building.
News station KXAS-TV reported that dozens of people were protesting outside the building. Police said the protest began peacefully before protesters began to block lanes of a service road. Police blocked off one lane for the demonstrators, who then moved into the other lanes. A police supervisor said five were arrested when they refused police orders to move.
Dallas police confirmed the arrests but declined to provide details on the charges the five were facing.
A final dispatch from Washington:
By late afternoon, with temperatures in the mid 90s, protesters had packed up their kids and their signs and were heading home. Walking back along Pennsylvania Avenue, Megan McHugh, a 24-year-old in oversized sunglasses, was happy to discuss her politics and the message she had hand-painted on to a cardboard sign.
“Dear world, we will not give up on love,” it read, with the signature “Americans”. It had been supposed to say “decent Americans”, McHugh said, but the glue had melted off in the heat.
“It was supposed to say *decent* Americans but the decent melted off.”
— Lucia Graves (@lucia_graves) June 30, 2018
Metaphors abound @ today’s #MarchForFamilies pic.twitter.com/IcBjgtnPgB
McHugh moved to Washington from Chicago just two months ago, she said, adding that while she had become “scared” about the state of national politics, what she had seen had given her hope.
“There were so many different kinds of people today,” she said. “It really felt like what Americans should be.”
About half a block away, near the Trump International Hotel, a mother and daughter who had come in from Virginia were leaving with similarly upbeat impressions.
“There was a sense of humor but it was serious too,” said Judith Dawson. “Americans are awake in a way we haven’t been for a while.”
Her daughter, Monette, said the march had made a deep impression.
“My ancestors were separated from their children going back 250 years,” she said. “I wasn’t around to stand with them then so I am standing with them now, hopefully for the last time.”
A mother-daughter pair at today’s #MarchForFamilies. The rhyme was written by granddaughter Zora — named (aptly?) for Zora Neale Hurston pic.twitter.com/0r77tz9gUz
— Lucia Graves (@lucia_graves) June 30, 2018
She held a brightly-lettered sign, written in rhyme by her own daughter, 14-year-old Zora. “It’s a SIN to separate KIN,” the sign read. On the other side: “Kids of all AGES should not be in CAGES.”
Zora was named, appropriately, after Zora Neale Hurston.
One of many families the Guardian spoke with on Saturday, the Dawsons were glad to see the march attract such a wide cross-section of the public, they said, and in particular a sizeable Christian presence unwilling to have its views co-opted by evangelicals who support Donald Trump. A favourite sign read: “This old Wasp is woke.”
Like many protesters in the wake of Thursday’s newsroom shooting in nearby Annapolis, Maryland, the Dawsons were at pains to make themselves helpful to media.
“You tell all your journalist friends to keep up the good work and don’t be intimidated,” the elder Dawson said.
At a Starbucks north of Lafayette Park – unofficial headquarters for a number of reporters – protesters recovered from the heat. A mother sought to soothe her shrieking baby. In line, a particularly ill-looking marcher told a young man wearing dark eyeliner she had been out in the sun since 11am.
He reeled in sympathy. “I’m a human glazed doughnut,” he replied, “and I’ve only been here for an hour.”
Updated
Donald Trump returned to Twitter on Saturday afternoon, addressing immigration policy if not directly confronting the major nationwide protests against his separation and detention of undocumented migrant families.
“When people come into our Country illegally,” the president wrote, from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, “we must IMMEDIATELY escort them back out without going through years of legal maneuvering. Our laws are the dumbest anywhere in the world. Republicans want Strong Borders and no Crime. Dems want Open Borders and are weak on Crime!”
The president also claimed he “never pushed the Republicans in the House to vote” for either of the immigration bills that recently failed there, falling between dissatisfied moderates and hardline conservatives as so many such efforts have fallen before.
The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs had some instant Twitter analysis about the veracity or otherwise of the president’s tweet:
These tweets are three days apart pic.twitter.com/Yc8tpfXTMz
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) June 30, 2018
Trump also refrained – initially – from answering a fiery speech at the Los Angeles rally by the congresswoman Maxine Waters, usually a favourite target.
According to the White House pool report, around 200 protesters were in place near Trump’s golf club today. Signs held by the protesters, the report said, “included:
I really do care you should too #begone
God knows you lie
My civility is locked in a cage / reunite families now accompanied by the drawing of a child behind a chain link fence
Even the Trump family belongs together
Stop racism now
We the people say no to the Trump agenda taped over a rainbow flag.
Mueller aint goin away
Do you know where our children are.
Updated
A message from the midwest
From Chicago to smaller cities in Wisconsin, dozens of rallies took place across the midwest.
For 22-year-old Victoria Duarte, rallies were heartening, even though they started with a man yelling: “If you can’t speak English, get out of the country.”
“Personally, I was out there today for so many reasons, but mainly because us young people feel a lot of anger right now, and a lot of frustration,” she said. “We want to put it into the community in action.”
“Just being able to go out into Eau Claire and see people who care just as much as I do was a huge plus,” she said. She and other organizers with NextGen America successfully got 150 young people to pledge to vote. They might have gotten more, but ran out of cards.
“What’s happening at the border right now is absolutely atrocious, and everybody has common ground in fighting this fight.”
Here’s more from the Associated Press.
Chicago, Illinois
Crowds faced a heat index of as high as 110F (43C) in downtown Chicago to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policy, surrounding a stage in Daley Plaza and shouting “Sí, se puede!” (“Yes, you can!”).
Margo Chavez-Easley, a 39-year-old Chicago resident who immigrated to the US from Guatemala when she was nine, carried a sign that read, “What lengths would you go for your children?”
Chavez-Easley told the Chicago Tribune that as an immigrant and an American, she felt a mix of pride and shame. The Democratic US Senator Dick Durbin was in attendance, saying it was “a place I had to be”.
Detroit, Michigan
Hundreds of people gathered in Detroit and 22 other Michigan cities to add their voices to nationwide protests over the detention of immigrant families.
Detroit police estimated more than 250 people marched through the city’s downtown before holding a rally at Hart Plaza in sweltering, 95F (35C) heat.
The Detroit News reports the Democratic US representative Sander Levin told the gathering that the detention of young immigrant children and the Trump administration’s other immigration policies “are a danger to American society”.
Marshalltown, Iowa
A central Iowa father says he was inspired to organize a rally in support of immigrant families after seeing news on Father’s Day of children separated from their parents who had recently crossed the US border.
About 125 people turned out for the rally organized by Steve Adelmund. He recalled being brought to tears when seeing the news of immigrant children being separated from parents and held in cages at the border.
Adelmund, who says he identifies as a Democrat but sometimes votes Republican, said he believes the country is at a dangerous ideological turning point and that the time to speak out is now. He said, in part, his motivation was to show his 10-year-old daughter what democracy looked like and that one person could make a difference.
Columbus, Ohio
At least one person was arrested when protesters blocked a downtown Columbus, Ohio, street after about 2,000 people attended a two-hour rally outside the statehouse.
The Columbus Dispatcher reports police tried to shepherd the protesters from the intersection. A woman was taken away by police after a scuffle.
Melissa Myers, a nurse, told those gathered for the rally: “You don’t have to be a parent to be outraged. You just have to be a decent human being.” She said she’d never attended a rally before, much less organized one.
Updated
We were not able to squeeze this in the blog earlier today, so here it is now. The progressive senator Elizabeth Warren called for comprehensive reform to immigration, and for “replacing Ice with something that reflects our morality”.
"Mothers have told me that at night, they believe they can still hear their children cry. This is not about politics. This is about human beings." - Massachusetts @SenWarren addresses a growing crowd of hundreds on Boston's City Hall Plaza. @wbz pic.twitter.com/1515LhrKzT
— Anaridis Rodriguez (@Anaridis) June 30, 2018
Updated
Want to see all the best protest signs of the day? Look no further.
Updated
Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California, is now speaking in Los Angeles.
Some of us know the history of those who have separated children ... As an African American woman I was raised on the stories of what happened on the auction block.
Waters has been the subject of intense criticism and threats from Trump supporters since she said members of the Trump administration should be publicly shamed for their role separating children from families.
She has had to cancel two public events in the last two days due to escalating death threats, she said earlier this week.
#LIVE: Maxine Waters delivers strong words at #FamiliesBelongTogetherMarch, rally in LA - “If you shoot me, you better shoot straight. There’s nothing like a wounded animal. Today I say impeach 45!” https://t.co/TxMSbTKVFr pic.twitter.com/7r0Osrxo4n
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) June 30, 2018
Now we have some members of Congress who are intimidated... I have no fear.
[People are] talking about shooting me, talking about hanging me... If you shoot me you better shoot straight – there’s nothing like a wounded animal.” ...
“They dare me to say impeach him. Today I say, impeach 45!”
Updated
From the streets of New York City, here’s another protester, explaining why she decided to brave the heat and come out.
Jackie Meier
“I came out today because I felt that was something that I could actually do to help the cause and show my support,” she said. “It’s so wrong. Families need to be together; small children should not be separated from their families. I have a memory from when I was five years old of being lost in a museum, and it was traumatic, and I was only separated from my parents for 10 minutes.”
Her friend said: “I’m in utter despair and it just keeps getting worse ... I’m trying to find a way to resist what’s happened in the last year and a half and save our country. It’s fight or flight.”
Updated
US Senator Kamala Harris just spoke in Los Angeles as well, telling a crowd, “we are better than this.”
“When we know that we have those 2,000 children crying for their parents and there is no plan for reunification, we know we are better than this.
When we know those children will suffer lifelong trauma and this is not reflective of a civil society because a society will be judged on how it treats its children and the least among us, we know we are better than this.
And when we have failed to keep our promise to over 700,000 young people, and we call them Dreamers, we know we are better than this...
So, we’re at an inflection moment.
And years from now, years from now, our children our grandchildren, folks are going to look at us and they’re going to ask us years from now a question.
And that question is going to be: where were you at that inflection moment?
And what I know Los Angeles is that our answer is not going to be simply how we felt, but what we did...
We will vote, we will act, and we will not relent. We will not tire, we will keep fighting, because we are better than this.”
Here’s a video where Harris shares her impressions of a child detention facility, immediately after visiting one.
There is no distinction between these “detention centers” and a prison. You walk through the halls and the doors clink shut and there are bars on the windows. They get time to have recreation for a certain number of hours a day in a 500 square-foot cell. This is a prison. pic.twitter.com/2cAELoejWh
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 25, 2018
John Legend, the Grammy and Oscar Award-winning singer, just performed a new song in Los Angeles, California, as protests there heat up.
Legend sings: “Everyday I wake up, everything is broken / Turning off my phone just to get out of bed / Get up every evening, history’s repeating / turning off my phone because it’s hurtiung my chest.”
The singer and his wife, Chrissy Teigen, have been outspoken critics of Trump’s policy of separating children. When a TMZ reporter asked the singer about Sarah Sanders on Thursday, he replied: “Ask me ‘Should we be reuniting 2,000 kids with their families?... Yes we should.”
CNN reports 45 people are being treated for heat exhaustion or in cooling stations in Washington DC. Perhaps most surprising, is that there are not more: it’s 105F (40C) outside the White House, and thousands have still come out.
How many people turned out in scorching heat for the #FamiliesBelongTogether march in DC? A TON OF PEOPLE pic.twitter.com/m50a48GUj2
— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) June 30, 2018
Heat index is 105° and there are 30,000 people outside the White House right now standing in front the blazing sun to insist #FamiliesBelongTogether pic.twitter.com/6w6lwhxrjO
— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) June 30, 2018
It’s the heat of the afternoon, and it’s no exaggeration to say it is a scorcher.
This map from the National Weather Service shows heat advisories and warnings extend from the Canadian border all the way down to San Antonio, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico.
Yeah, it's summer, and summer is hot; but heat can be dangerous. HEAT KILLS more people each year than any other weather hazard, including tornadoes,lightning, & floods. You take precautions for those. Give heat the same consideration during this #heatWavehttps://t.co/asAP108BNk pic.twitter.com/2XlPgc2w3Y
— NWS (@NWS) June 29, 2018
West coast protests gear up
Thousands of people are protesting coast-to-coast in the United States, and some on the west coast are just gearing up. Here are dispatches from America’s west, where many immigrants are still being held, from the Associated Press.
McAllen, Texas
Several dozen protesters gathered in front of the border patrol station in McAllen, Texas, near a detention center where migrant children were being held in cages.
People held American and Texas flags and signs depicting a migrant father, mother and child as the Holy Family with haloed heads traveling through the desert.
Rio Grande Valley-based attorney Jennifer Harbury said parents separated from their children are being held in “prison-like” conditions in nearby Port Isabel.
She said children separated at the border should have alien registration numbers linked to their parents, but attorneys are “having terrible trouble finding these kids.”
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Thousands of people gathered in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policies, calling for an end to the detention of immigrant families.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, a Democrat, told the crowd about his trip to the US-Mexico border, where he and other mayors were denied a tour of a shelter at the Tornillo port of entry outside of El Paso, Texas. He elicited a roar from the crowd when he said, “We are here to push back, to resist.”
Margarita Perez of Albuquerque held up a small Mexican flag as speakers addressed the crowd. Accompanied by her daughter, she said she was concerned about the children who were being detained and for those parents who did not know where their children were taken.
- Associated Press in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Denver, Colorado
More than 4,000 people gathered in downtown Denver, Colorado, where people symbolically wore foil blankets.
American authorities gave similar blankets to children they separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border. The rally Saturday is one of hundreds across urging the Trump administration to reunite families.
Brenda Villa of Commerce City, Colorado, says “you want to have faith” President Donald Trump’s administration will do so as promised.
Protesters held signs saying, “Keep the kids, deport the racists,” and “Break walls, build families.”
Joan Culwell, of Littleton, said she had never been to a protest but decided to go after first lady Melania Trump recently wore a coat that read, “I really don’t care, do u?” while traveling to visit migrant children. Culwell wore a T-shirt saying, “I care!! Do you?”
El Paso, Texas
Thousands gathered in the west Texas city of El Paso to condemn what speakers describe as unconstitutional overreach by the Trump administration and heavy-handed tactics by immigration agents.
Many of the protesters, monitored by several law enforcement personnel, converged Saturday on the international bridge that carries traffic between El Paso and Juarez, Mexico.
They carried signs with slogans like “We are all immigrants” as they chanted “Love, not hate, makes America great!” and other sayings.
Updated
High-profile politicians and speakers call to reunite families
- Americans protested coast-to-coast against US immigration policies that separate children from family members at the border. The administration formally ended the policy in June, but more than 2,000 migrant children remain in limbo, held in detention facilities and foster care centers across the US.
- Actress American Ferrera, singer Alicia Keys and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda called for the Trump administration to reunite the more than 2,000 children separated at the border with their families.
- Progressive leaders called on American to, “Remember in November”, when Americans go to the ballot box. This year’s midterm elections are this fall, when many Democratic politicians will face reelection.
- One example: civil rights icon and US Rep. John Lewis had a crowd chanting, “Vote! Vote! Vote!” in Atlanta, Georgia.
- As protesters gather around the country, President Trump is at his luxury golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he is interviewing US Supreme Court candidate, following the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Guardian reporter Ed Helmore is with the marchers in New York City, where he’s spoken with protesters across the city.
Janice Erlbaum
I am protesting the inhumane deportation and incarceration policies under this administration. To witness this march is hopeful, but most of the time I’m really depressed and horrified at the sight of people enjoying the cruelty of this administration. I fear for myself, my friends and my family.
Rosemary Fassbinder
We’ve had enough. Donald Trump needs to pay attention. This past two weeks has not gone unnoticed – the protest movement is going to gather strength. It sure seems a long way since the pussy hat protests. We’d hoped that would change this, but it’s so much worse now. So we’re going to keep marching and keep protesting and try to make sure we don’t get complacent or numb.
Lori Wilkinson
Last time I felt this angry was when George W Bush was planning the Iraq war. I’m upset about everything this administration does, but separating children immigrant from their parents pushed me over the edge. I’m considering going a full-time Foley Square protest, or at least I could bake for the sit-in protesters.
Kelly Charris
I’m very disappointed. It’s so hard to ignore what’s happening, despite the executive order. We see those kids in the cages. They’re going to be traumatized for life. It makes me very sad to see this. My dad was an immigrant. He didn’t go home for 20 years because he was affraid he wouldn’t pass the test when he tried to come back. There has to be a better way.
Here’s more from Lucia Graves in Washington DC:
Top-billed speakers took the stage midday, as the DC heat reached its climax, with Lin Manuel Miranda singing a lullaby for separated children — and assembled crowds were totally undeterred as temperatures climbed. You can’t pay to hear Miranda singing on Broadway anymore, after all, but if you showed up Saturday, you heard him.
Miranda was singing “Dear Theodosia,” from his hit musical Hamilton, known for its celebration of America as a nation of immigrants. And he sang with words unaltered — a way, perhaps, of emphasizing its universality — as many in the audience sang along, becoming a near chorus on the refrain, “Someday, someday.”
“Don’t stop. Don’t give up,” he told the audience, as he waved off stage.
Next up, Alicia Keys told sweat-drenched crowds she came less as a star than as the mother of a seven-year-old son. “His name is Egypt and I couldn’t imagine not being able to find him. I couldn’t imagine being separated from him,” she said. “If it can happen to one child it can happen to any child,” she said.
But perhaps the most powerful language came from actress America Ferrera, who said she came, above all, as a human.
“I’m here not only as a brand new mother, as the proud child of Honduran immigrants, and not only as an American who sees it as her duty to be here defending justice. I am here as a human being with a beating heart, who understands compassion and can easily understand what it must feel like to struggle the way families are struggling right now,” she said to cheers from the audience.
“It is easy to imagine and I would hope if it was my family being torn apart,” she added, “then someone would stand up for me and my family. It is that simple. This fight does not belong to one group of people, one color of people, one race of people, one gender — it belongs to all of us,” she said.
Every so often, the crowd erupted in boos or exclamations of, “How dare they!” But overwhelmingly, those in attendance maintained an elevated mood. As Ferrera and Keys read testimony from people affected by Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy (names were changed to protect identities), they chanted “Love is love,” or hummed strains from the passing lullaby.
Keys told the story of “Margarita,” a mother who’d been separated from her son “Carlos” since before Christmas. Said the mother in Keys’ testimony: “First they tell you in a few weeks you will have your child, then in a month, then in another month, but they never fulfill their promise.”
Testimony read by Ferrera focused on am Oakland-based grandfather hoping to be reunited with his granddaughter Theresa — but Ferrera also encouraged people to imagine all the stories that go unread.
“What makes humans remarkable is our capacity to imagine. We have an imagination let’s use it,” she said.
And so, they have. With signs that read, “Don’t shoot — I’m white,” and dressed in costumes from the Handmaid’s Tale, toting their toddlers, holding hands, cursing the heat and playing tibetan singing bowls, the crowds are beginning their march down Pennsylvania Avenue, headed toward the Capitol, their final destination.
Updated
Before we share another dispatch from Washington DC, where we’ve heard from Alicia Keys, America Ferrera and Lin-Manuel Miranda, let’s take a look outside the beltway.
Here are 10 protest pictures from outside New York and Washington DC. Including one (below) of protesters rallying near the Trump National Golf Club, where President Trump is golfing this weekend.
- Louisville, Kentucky
- Birmingham, New York
- Newark, New Jersey
- Tampa, Florida
- New Orleans, Louisiana
- Eau Clare, Wisconsin
- Burlington, Vermont
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Troy, Missouri
- Boston, Massachusetts
One message repeated over and over again today: “Remember in November.”
Diane Guerrero, actress from Orange is the New Black, who was left alone at 14-years-old when her family was deported, repeated the message again to a crowd in Washington DC.
Remember this in November, when we march to the polls... Remember in November that the end to these cruel policies starts with us... Te amo mama, papa hermano, te amo and I miss you every day.”
Here’s a bit more about what’s happening in New York City, where thousands have gathered downtown:
Protesters are chanting “Shame!” and singing “Shut detention down!” at the kickoff of a New York City march denouncing the Trump administration’s policy of separating families of people caught crossing the border illegally.
Crowds gathered in sweltering 86-degree morning heat on Saturday at a Manhattan park before a march across the Brooklyn Bridge to Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn, near the federal courthouse. The crowd provided a refrain of “shame” as an organizer ran down a list of people marchers are blaming for the family separations.
Among their targets: President Donald Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the agencies Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
This speech from civil rights icon and US Representative John Lewis has a crowd chanting “Vote! Vote! Vote!” in Atlanta, Georgia.
Some of you know when I was very young, had all of my hair and a few pounds lighter, there were people that said we would never get a Civil Rights Act or a Voting Rights Act, but we marched.
We were arrested, we were jailed, we were beaten, but we didn’t give up. We must not give up. I will tell you one thing that we all can do, we all can do is continue to appeal to our beloved communities.
We are one family. We are one family. We all live in the same house, not just the American house, but the world house. We are all brothers and sisters. It doesn’t matter if we are black or white, Asian, Latino, we are all one people.
Maybe our foremothers and forefathers all came to this land in different ships, but we are all in the same boat now. There is no such thing as an illegal human being. We all are human.
And we must teach people in power that we will not be satisfied with the order of things. I’m not satisfied. There are hundreds of members of Congress that are not satisfied. There are many candidates running that are not satisfied.
I’ll say to each and everyone of you, when the Election Day comes around we have to go out and vote like we’ve never voted before.
Alicia Keys: this fight is to "save the soul" of America
Alicia Keys, the 15-time Grammy Award-winning singer, just gave an impassioned speech about fighting to “save the soul” of America, something we’ve heard again and again from protesters.
Our democracy is at stake, our humanity is at stake. We are out here to save the soul of our nation.
We need all the children reunited to their parents. We demand to end the zero humanity policy. We need to save the Supreme Court. And we need to vote. Because when we vote we win. And so America, and I want you to join us to say we’re not backing down.
The crowd, gathered in downtown New York City, chanted back, “We’re not backing down!” The speech came just after Lin-Manuel Miranda sang a lullaby for the children separated from their families.
"Our democracy is at stake. Our humanity is at stake ... We demand an end to the zero humanity policy"
— AJ+ (@ajplus) June 30, 2018
— Alicia Keys at the #FamiliesBelongTogetherMarch in Washington, D.C. pic.twitter.com/HolNSiyJMd
Let’s just return for one moment to the lullaby Lin-Manuel Miranda sang at the march in Washington DC. Check out this video below.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is singing a lullaby for children separated from their parents pic.twitter.com/csctFNjR5T
— Meg Wagner (@megwagner) June 30, 2018
Updated
Here’s a dispatch from Guardian US reporter Lucia Graves, who is on the ground in Washington DC:
The lineup of DC speakers began with a mother affected by Trump’s immigration policies, who told the assembling masses after she was put in detention, she was separated from her son for nine months, during which time she was told he could be put up for adoption.
“I was terrified I might never see him again,” she told crowds braving what, by shortly after 11 am, was already 90-degree heat.
“Shame!” the crowd chanted. “Families belong together!” Among them were Stephen Spitz and Kristin Cabral, who’ve become what you might call regulars to the White House front lawn. “For the past year and a half, I’ve been marching practically every day,” Spitz said. Asked which protests he’s attended he quipped, “The question is which ones haven’t I attended!”
Spitz was last out here as recently as Tuesday, when Supreme Court justices issued a long-awaited ruling in Trump v Hawaii, in which it upheld Trump’s travel ban restricting travel and immigration from seven countries, many of them majority-Muslim ones.
“That’s part of it,” he said about why he’s out today. “This is all part of the same thing.”
The tenure remained respectful and peace-oriented as speakers took the stage Saturday. Some, like Gabriel Kolmisar and Amy Troxel of DC’s Socialist Snack Squad, were out with backpacks full of water bottles and snacks to keep people fueled (full disclosure: this Guardian reporter accepted a bag of Cheetz-Its.)
Others showed up as family units, no longer taking the privilege for granted. “We’re a family unit and nobody has separated us yet,” Chris Fondi, who attended the march with two adult sisters, Laura Fondi and Ann Fondi. Pushing her nephew toward the Guardian she quipped, “Though if you’d like to take him, he’s college educated.”
This protester told me she didn’t want her name or face with her sign. “Not in today’s world.” pic.twitter.com/W6CuzTzWt8
— Lucia Graves (@lucia_graves) June 30, 2018
Lin Manuel Miranda just sang Dear Theodosia, a song about children from his blockbuster play Hamilton. Here’s a sample from the chorus:
You’ll come of age with our young nation
We’ll bleed and fight for you
We’ll make it right for you
If we lay a strong enough foundation
We’ll pass it on to you
We’ll give the world to you and you’ll blow us all away
Someday, someday
Yeah, you’ll blow us all away
Someday, someday
I just spoke to a woman protesting in Indiana – Vice President Mike Pence’s home state – where “thousands” are standing outside the statehouse in Indianapolis.
“Our country is really really close to the edge of the abyss, of just committing some serious human rights violations, and in fact we have already,” said Mahri Irvine, a 35-year-old anthropologist, as people cheered in the background.
“To me, it’s upsetting if people don’t have that level of imagine to think – how would I feel if I had to flee a violent country, and I was incarcerated, and my children were taken away from me?”
People have been standing outside the Indiana statehouse for hours, even though temperatures are expected to top out in the 90s today (around 35C).
“It’s incredibly hot, I’ve been hiding in the shade the whole time and I am just sweating,” she said.
It's a gorgeous (and hot!!!) day in #Indianapolis and I'm proud to join thousands of #patriotic #Americans from #Indiana as we protest against @GOP #xenophobia, #nationalism, and #racism! We must defend our #Americanvalues!#FamiliesBelongTogetherMarch pic.twitter.com/1Ltt6cDHDS
— Mahri Irvine, PhD (@Mahri_Irvine) June 30, 2018
From Dallas, Texas – the city the Texas Tribune calls one of the “blue dots in Texas’ red political sea” – we have this dispatch from the Associated Press.
Hundreds of protesters in downtown Dallas are calling for a clear plan to reunify families separated under President Donald Trump’s policy of separating immigrant families.
The protesters, many donning white T-shirts and clothing, carried protest signs and gathered in mass outside Dallas city hall.
One protest sign read, “Compassion not cruelty” while another said simply: “Vote”
Another sign said, “November is coming.”
Protest organizer Michelle Wentz says opposition to the policy has seemed to cross political party lines. She called it a “barbaric and inhumane” policy.
Protesters continued to stream in to the area as people registered demonstrators to vote.
The hum of side conversations gave way to chants of “We care!” outside city hall.
People calling for reunification, compassion & action. Also, encouraging voter registration & a strong turnout on Election Day. #FamiliesBelongTogther march at Dallas City Hall. @NBCDFW pic.twitter.com/x2tNTKSIaL
— Vanessa Brown (@VanessaBrownTV) June 30, 2018
US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a progressive from Massachusetts, just spoke in Boston to an adoring crowd. We’re tracking down more of her comments now.
Cheers for @SenWarren
— ACLU Massachusetts (@ACLU_Mass) June 30, 2018
“This is about human beings, about mamas who want their children back...This is wrong and this is not the way to run our country.”#FamiliesBelongTogether pic.twitter.com/e8QF9xsdxB
Guardian US reporters interview one reunited family
Guardian US reporters Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone interviewed a family that was separated at the border and, more than a month later, reunited.
Their story is uncommon – many families are still separated – but no less harrowing.
The children describe sleeping in a windowless cement room. Without clocks or sunlight, it was impossible to tell whether it was day or night. They had no place to sit, only were given mylar blankets and called “donkeys” by immigration agents, they said.
Updated
Crowds are gathering in Washington for the Families Belong Together march in Lafayette Square park, across from the White House. Despite the extreme heat hundreds of thousands are expected to gather to call for the reuniting of families separated under Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, though it was off to a slow start in the hour before start time.
The estimates come according to organizers of the day’s event, including MoveOn, the American Civil Liberties Union and dozens of other advocacy groups in charge of the days march, one of 130 sister marches around the country.
It will feature star speakers Lin-Manuel Miranda and America Ferrera, and — an hour before it’s slated start time Saturday — it was off to a peaceful start.
John Holland of Takoma Park, Maryland, the de facto hippie suburb of Washington, was among a group of early-assembled Buddhist-affiliated protesters who held hands singing and playing a Tibetan singing bowl in the moments before the rally, as a speaker described the “amazing effect it can have on everyone if we move slowly.”
Asked why he’d come out to brave the 95-degree heat, the Takoma Park native quipped “peer pressure.”
Like many of those gathering ahead of the rally, Holland also attended the Women’s March on Washington’s National Mall, which in the wake of Trump’s inauguration has turned into the site of perennial protests, including the March for Science last year, and more recently, the student-led March for Our Lives, in the wake of the Parkland shooting.
The protest comes on the heels of a tumultuous week in Washington, with the resignation of Anthony Kennedy from the Supreme Court and a newsroom shooting in nearby Annapolis, Maryland. But most of those assembling outside the White House want to talk about immigration, a
And the estimated 2,000 children have already been separated at the border —and they are dissatisfied with the administration’s feeble walk backs.
Hoisting a “Make The Handmaid’s Tale Fiction Again” sign, Kate Earle of Maryland told the Guardian “reunification of families is a start but locking them up together is not a solution.”
You might notice protesters are wearing white. Organizers explained why:
The lead partners of this action are calling upon participants to wear white—as a striking visual symbol that will also connect attendees in solidarity to each-other and channel historic social justice movements unified by one color of clothing.
GIRL POWER! 💥 @paolamendoza @sarahsophief @glopan and @dorieklein pic.twitter.com/1qzwpHyq7E
— MomsRising (@MomsRising) June 30, 2018
If the “zero tolerance” family separations policy has evoked one image, it’s children “in cages”.
Protesters have seized on images of children locked in detention facilities, wrapped in mylar blankets – the silver foil sort usually reserved for natural disasters.
Although children who crossed the border alone were held in similar detention facilities during the Obama administration, children separated from their parents at the border have tended to be much younger.
#FamiliesBelongTogether rally, protesting the immigration detention of children, held in front of the US consulate in Toronto. pic.twitter.com/EcCNWaaTrw
— Lorenda Reddekopp (@CBCLorenda) June 30, 2018
Marches begin to gather across United States
Marches are beginning to gather in Washington DC, Chapel Hill and Raleigh, North Carolina, and University Hill, Maryland. There’s even a protest at the US consulate in Toronto, Canada.
Below is the protest gathering in Foley Square in New York City.
🥁 @FogoAzulNY is rocking Foley Square with us RIGHT NOW! 🥁 See you there! #FamiliesBelongTogether pic.twitter.com/fDQ68BHJ5Z
— New York Immigration Coalition (@thenyic) June 30, 2018
Here are some of the signs people made for today’s marches.
Today, we will pick up our signs, lace up our shoes, and make our voices heard. Are you ready? #FamiliesBelongTogether pic.twitter.com/VefCE3ZBiS
— Families Belong Together March (@WomenBelong) June 30, 2018
On our way! #AbolishICE pic.twitter.com/hdNVX1drgt
— Flatbush Tenants (@Flatbushpower) June 30, 2018
“Stop ignorance, not immigrants”#FamiliesBelongTogether https://t.co/QR19GnatjX
— RAICES (@RAICESTEXAS) June 30, 2018
Here is a reminder of why people are marching. Beginning in May, the Trump administration announced a “zero-tolerance” immigration policy that meant every migrant caught crossing the border would be criminally prosecuted.
However, because children cannot be held indefinitely in detention, the Trump administration decided in order to prosecute parents, it needed to separate them from children.
Since, more than 2,300 families have been separated at the border – children from parents, and siblings from one another. There is no clear system for reuniting the children, and though the Trump administration walked back its zero tolerance policy, very few families appear to have been reunited.
Watch the story of one parent’s separation below.
"It's been 50 days since I heard of my son"
— #FamiliesBelongTogether (@AntonioArellano) June 30, 2018
Mother describes her ordeal in a Texas migrant detention center. #FamiliesBelongTogether pic.twitter.com/Yo5qopWVt3
We’re expecting marches to begin around 10am ET, but just as a reminder, these are not the first actions of the week.
On Thursday, 600 women were arrested for protesting inside a US Senate office at the Department of Justice, the agency which designed and carried out the “zero-tolerance” policy that lead to family separations. Arrested along with them was actress Susan Sarandon.
Listen to for the songs in this video of the protest.
Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the “Families belong together” protests
Organizers say they are expecting tens of thousands to march across all 50 US states on Saturday, to protest President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, which has seen more than 2,300 children separated from their parents in recent weeks after they crossed the Mexico border without documentation.
“This is an all hands on deck, stop the madness moment. It’s not a red or blue thing,” national protest organizer Ai-jen Poo told the Guardian.
More than 750 events are planned across the US today. They were primarily organised for people horrified at the news of family separations and detentions, but have also become a forum for a show of opposition against Trump’s travel ban, which targets five Muslim-majority countries and was upheld this week, and the threat of Trump nominating a hard-right conservative for the US supreme court seat that will be vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy.
