Multiple organizations gathered Thursday on Capitol Hill for a demonstration involving a group of children lying down with thermal survival blankets and cages, protesting the Trump administration’s enforcement of a zero tolerance immigration policy that led to thousands of children being separated from their families who crossed the southern border illegally.
The Franciscan Action Network, Faith in Action, and the DMV Congregation Network led the protest, mirroring the conditions experienced by children placed in detainment who have been separated from their parents, like those in Texas.
“All of God’s children are welcome in the land that God has created!” said one of the priests addressing the event in the Russell Senate Office Building. “We have allowed this evil to continue and it will not continue any longer! We will pray! We will pass! We will vote! We will rise! We will protest! Until victory is won!”
Under the zero tolerance immigration policy implemented this spring by the Trump administration, adults who are apprehended illegally crossing the southern border are referred for criminal prosecution. The new policy has led to children who cross with their parents to be separated from their families.
Responding to widespread outrage, President Trump signed an executive order intending to end the family separations.
But activists in the room held signs saying Trump’s executive order did not go far enough and that it was still inhumane to detain illegal immigrants, even if the children were not separated from their families.
Meanwhile, the House postponed a vote on an immigration reform bill from Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., that appeared to lack sufficient support and defeated a more conservative immigration bill.
Faith In Action is planning similar protests this weekend at the U.S.-Mexico border, CNN reported.
