Part of protests against Donald Trump | |
Date | June 30, 2018 (key rally) and other dates |
---|---|
Location | Washington, D.C., and over 700 other U.S. cities, and others worldwide [1] [2] |
Type | Demonstration (protest) |
Theme | Opposition to family separation |
Cause | Trump administration family separation policy |
Organized by | grassroots support, Families Belong Together, and other organizations |
Participants | protestors across the United States and some globally |
Protests against the Trump administration family separation policy are a reaction to the Trump administration policy of separating children from their parents or guardians who crossed the U.S. border either illegally or to request asylum, jailing the adults and locating the minors at separate facilities under the care of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Trump Administration started a "zero tolerance" policy on May 7, 2018, under which any person crossing the United States border may be charged with a federal misdemeanor. [3] Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, announced that policy. [4] During remarks made on May 7 in Scottsdale, Arizona, he said, "If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law." [5] However, immigration rights activists have reported that children accompanying adults have been verified to be members of families, not part of a child trafficking scheme as suggested by Sessions. [6]
Because minors cannot be jailed under a 2016 ruling by C.D. Cal. Judge Dolly M. Gee regarding the 1997 Reno v. Flores settlement, they are separated from their families. [3] Minors are housed in detention centers that can be made up of tents or other makeshift facilities. [7] [8] Illegal border crossing is a crime in the United States. [9] However, migrants attempting to apply for asylum in the United States are also being denied entry. [9] In addition, immigration activists allege that parents are not being reunited with their children after their parents' sentences in detention are finished. [10] Sessions also announced that the United States would no longer accept asylum applications for migrants who are victims of domestic abuse or gang violence. [11]
Inspired by the viral photo of a crying two-year-old girl looking up at her mother, on June 16, 2018, a California couple started a fund-raising campaign on Facebook named "Reunite an immigrant parent with their child" with a goal of raising $1,500 (~$1,820 in 2023). As of June 20, more than $17 million had been raised. [12] The money will go to the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, and provide legal aid for immigrant parents who have been arrested at the border. [13]
The photograph was taken by professional photographer John Moore just after the mother was asked to set her child down to be body-searched before boarding the Border Patrol van and as the little girl began to cry. The mother is from Honduras and had been traveling for a month. [14]
The photograph has raised controversy after the father of the child said in an interview that the mother and daughter were now being detained together in McAllen, Texas. This has caused many in Trump's administration to rally against "fake news;" White House Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders tweeted that the Democrats and media "exploited this photo of a little girl to push their own agenda." [15]
A Portland, Oregon filmmaker, Linda Freeman, produced the video Unaccompanied: Alone in America [16] , in which children re-enact court transcripts of proceedings in which migrant children who have to represent themselves in immigration trials. [17] While this policy of children being unrepresented in court can be seen in 2005, the video is part of a fundraiser to provide legal counsel, services, and efforts to reunify children with their families.
In response to the family separation policy many celebrities, such as Chrissy Teigen and husband John Legend, donated to the ACLU in response to the "...cruel, anti-family..." actions, that "...go against everything we believe this country should represent. [18] Others, such as Jimmy Fallon, have also donated to the Texas-based charity Refugee and Immigration Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), at times in Trump's name, to protest the actions and policies of the Trump Administration. [19]
During a Congressional hearing on May 8, 2018, a group of mothers and their children held a silent protest in opposition to the zero-tolerance policy. [5] Protests took place on May 31, 2018, in El Paso, Texas. [20] Around 100 protestors in front of the El Paso County Courthouse held an "Evening of Action" rally. [20] In San Antonio, around 300 people attended a #WhereAreTheChildren rally in Guadalupe Plaza. [15] Joaquin Castro spoke at the demonstration. [15] Some protesters compared the detainment of children by the U.S. government to the Nazi concentration camps. [21] [22]
On June 1, "pop up protests" were planned in around sixteen states on a national day of action. [6] Hundreds protested the new policy, in Atlanta, New York City, Santa Monica, and Washington, D.C., on June 1. [23] In Houston, protestors gathered outside the City Hall to demonstrate. [10] In Concord, demonstrators gathered in front of the federal building. [24] There were around fifty people protesting outside the federal building in San Diego. [6] The protest in Memphis was organized in part by an attorney, Starkey Hahn. [25] A protest took place in Austin at Republic Square Park in the afternoon. [26] More than 100 people demonstrated outside the Immigration Services federal building in Los Angeles. [27] Around 100 people demonstrated outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Philadelphia. [28] In York County, Pennsylvania, people demonstrated outside the York County Detention Center on June 2, 2018. [29]
On June 13, 2018, eight House Democrats blocked streets to protest the family separation policy. [30] The protest started on the steps of the US Customs and Border Protection Building in Washington, D.C. [30] Luis Gutierrez, Joe Crowley, John Lewis, Pramila Jayapal, Jan Schakowsky, Al Green, Raúl Grijalva, Judy Chu, Adriano Espaillat, and Jimmy Gomez were joined by hundreds of activists and actor John Cusack. [30]
Some of the marches and protests were put together very quickly. The June 17, 2018, march in Tornillo, Texas was planned in around two days. [31] [32] Democratic politicians in Texas, including Beto O'Rourke and Veronica Escobar, organized the march with a group called the Latino Victory Project. [33] Joe Kennedy III, Veronica Escobar, Lupe Valdez, Mary González, César Blanco, Lina Ortega, and Gina Ortiz-Jones were also in attendance. [34] [35] The march was protesting a detention center for children near the port of entry in Tornillo. [34] By June 16, 200 minors had been housed at the center, which is made up of tents in an area that experiences extreme heat in the summer. [35] [9] The march began at the Tornillo-Guadalupe Toll Plaza and extended to the area containing the "tent city." [33] Also on June 17, 2018, hundreds of protesters gathered outside an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. [36] A vigil with around 200 people was held in McAllen, Texas, on June 17. [33] Seattle also had a protest, which was held at Westlake Park. [37] Representative Jayapal addressed the group. [37]
A planned "Rally for Migrants" was scheduled to take place in Phoenix, Arizona. [38] On June 18, dozens of protesters showed up to demonstrate outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans while Attorney General Jeff Sessions was speaking. [4] Also on June 18, 2018, nearly 100 protesters took part in a New York City rally organized by the Asian American Federation of New York, calling attention to the arrest of Xiu Qing You by ICE during a green card interview. [39]
Protesters demonstrated at LaGuardia Airport on the evening of June 20. [40] There were around 200 protestors there to see unaccompanied immigrant minors being taken to New York. [40]
On July 4, 2018, a female member of the group Rise and Resist, Therese Patricia Okoumou, climbed the base of the Statue of Liberty to protest the separation of migrant families, and stayed there for nearly three hours. [41] Tourists were evacuated from Liberty Island while New York City Police Officers responded to the scene, climbing 100 ft (30 m) to reach her. Okoumou was charged with trespassing, interference with government agency functions, and disorderly conduct in a Manhattan Court on July 5. [42] US Attorney Geoffrey Berman released a statement that Okoumou "staged a dangerous stunt that alarmed the public and endangered her own life and the lives of the NYPD officers who responded...". [43]
Her actions were separate from an earlier protest by Rise and Resist that same day in which protesters unveiled an "Abolish ICE" banner on the statue's pedestal; seven members of the organization were arrested. [44]
A series of protests called Families Belong Together was organized by a group of political organizations. [45] [46] Protests took place on several dates in June in numerous cities, including Washington, D.C., Boston, Fort Wayne, Seattle, San Francisco, New York, [46] Cleveland, [47] and St. Louis. [48] In Los Angeles, there were hundreds of protestors who marched from MacArthur Park to an immigrant detention center downtown. [49] There were also dozens of protestors in Huntington Village, New York. [49] In Austin, hundreds of protestors rallied at the Texas State Capitol. [50] In Eugene, Oregon, at a protest held in Kesey Square, more than 100 people attended. [51] Akron, Ohio had 200 protesters.
On June 23, 2018, a rally in San Francisco drew more than 500 people. [52] The event was one of a series of preliminary protests before the nationally organized Families Belong Together protests in Washington, D.C., New York City, and 700 other cities and towns in the United States. [1] [2]
On June 28, 2018, a protest in Washington, D.C., was organized by Women's March. [53] According to organizers, "2,500 women from 47 states participated in the protest." [54] Protesters blocked streets around the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building as they demanded, "abolish ICE," the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. [55] The protest concluded at the Hart Senate Office Building, where 575 people were arrested following acts of mass civil disobedience. [56] [57] The arrested included Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington and actress Susan Sarandon. [54]
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from cross-border crime and undocumented immigration that threaten national security and public safety.
Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292 (1993), was a Supreme Court of the United States case that addressed the detention and release of unaccompanied minors.
Mary Kerry Kennedy is an American lawyer, author, and human rights activist. She is a daughter of former United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy, and a niece of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy and former U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy.
The Marcelino Serna Port of Entry is a crossing of the United States–Mexico border. It opened on November 17, 2014, replacing the nearby Fabens Port of Entry. The crossing is built around the Tornillo–Guadalupe International Bridge about 1,800 feet (550 m) west of the previous two-lane Fabens–Caseta International Bridge and can accommodate vehicular, pedestrian, and commercial traffic. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility at the crossing served as the site for the Tornillo tent city, which housed as many as 2,800 detained migrant youths from June 2018 to January 2019. As of July 2019, a 2,500-bed holding facility for adult migrants is under construction at the site.
In United States immigration enforcement, "catch and release" refers to a practice of releasing a migrant to the community while he or she awaits hearings in immigration court, as an alternative to holding them in immigration detention. The migrants whom U.S. immigration enforcement agencies have allowed to remain in the community pending immigrant hearings have been those deemed low risk, such as children, families, and those seeking asylum.
Immigration policy, including illegal immigration to the United States, was a signature issue of former U.S. president Donald Trump's presidential campaign, and his proposed reforms and remarks about this issue generated much publicity. Trump has repeatedly said that illegal immigrants are criminals.
Thomas Douglas Homan is an American former police officer and government official who served during the first Trump Administration as acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from January 30, 2017, to June 29, 2018. Within the Trump administration, he was among the most strident proponents of separating children from their parents as a means of deterring illegal entry into the country. Since his retirement from government, he has been a Fox News contributor.
Veronica Escobar is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Texas's 16th congressional district, based in El Paso, since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as an El Paso County commissioner from 2007 to 2011 and the El Paso county judge from 2011 until 2017.
Casa Padre is a shelter for unaccompanied or separated immigrant minors in custody of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of Health & Human Services, located in Brownsville, Texas. The site opened in March 2017, and is still housing children in 2022. The building was formerly a Walmart store. The center is run by the nonprofit group Southwest Key Programs under contract from the federal government. Casa Padre is the largest licensed childcare facility in the United States, housing approximately 1,500 youths. The former Walmart store houses boys ranging from ages 10 to 17. According to the Internal Revenue Service, the group houses approximately 5,129 immigrant children in the United States, approximately 4 percent of the unaccompanied minors in the United States today.
The family separation policy under the first Trump administration was a controversial immigration enforcement strategy implemented in the United States from 2017 to 2018, aimed at deterring illegal immigration by separating migrant children from their parents or guardians. The policy, presented to the public as a "zero tolerance" approach, was intended to encourage tougher legislation and discourage unauthorized crossings. In some cases, families following the legal procedure to apply for asylum at official border crossings were also separated. Under the policy, federal authorities separated children and infants from parents or guardians with whom they had entered the US. The adults were prosecuted and held in federal jails or deported, and the children were placed under the supervision of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Prior to their transfer to HHS, some children spent three weeks or more in overcrowded border control centers, where they reported minimal food, no access to clean clothes or bathing facilities, and no adult caretakers; girls as young as ten were taking care of younger children.
Family detention is the detention of multiple family members together in an immigration detention context. In the U.S. they are referred to as family detention camps,family detention centers, or family detention facilities.
Unaccompanied Alien Children is a United States government classification for children in immigration custody and the name of a program operated by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to house and care for them. The term designates unaccompanied minors who are aliens, typically those who have been apprehended outside of a legal port of entry or judged inadmissible upon their entry.
The Tornillo tent city was a temporary immigrant detention facility for children located in Tornillo, Texas and operated by BCFS on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement. The Department termed it an "emergency influx care facility" and named it the Tornillo Influx Facility. When it was built in June 2018, the capacity was 400 minor immigrants with a one month contract. It was later expanded to a capacity of 4,000 minors. As many as 2,800 teenagers were held at the site before its closure was announced in January 2019. This made it one of the largest facilities in ORR's Unaccompanied Alien Children Program. All immigrant children had left the facility by January 11, 2019. Nearly 6,200 minors cycled through the facility within the seven months it operated. The area was previously used for a few months in 2016 to process migrant families and unaccompanied minors.
Occupy ICE is a series of protests, modeled on the Occupy Movement, that emerged in the United States in reaction to the Trump administration family separation policy, with a goal of disrupting operations at several U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) locations.
Families Belong Together refers both to an advocacy campaign devoted to reuniting immigrant families that were separated at the US-Mexico border by a Trump administration policy introduced in spring 2018, and also specifically to a series of protests on June 30, 2018 in Washington, D.C., New York City, and 700 other cities and towns in the United States. Very large crowds turned out to those events despite heat waves in many areas, including in Washington, D.C.
Women Disobey was a protest in Washington, D.C., on June 28, 2018. The protests against the Trump administration family separation policy were organized by Women's March. They took place in the streets around the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building and inside the Hart Senate Office Building. Following acts of mass civil disobedience, 575 people were arrested.
The Trump administration has detained migrants attempting to enter the United States at the United States–Mexico border. Government reports from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General in May 2019 and July 2019 found that migrants had been detained under conditions that failed federal standards. These conditions have included prolonged detention, overcrowding, and poor hygiene and food standards.
This is a timeline of events related to migrant children's detention centers in the United States.
Joe Biden's immigration policy initially focused on reversing many of the immigration policies of the previous Trump administration, before implementing stricter enforcement mechanisms later in his term.
anyone who crosses the border without authorization is now subject to prosecution for a federal misdemeanor