People For the American Way joined Voto Latino and a number of other civil rights organizations in the border city of Tornillo, Texas last Sunday to protest Donald Trump’s family separation policy.
The protest was aimed at challenging Donald Trump’s crusade against immigrants and the Latino community which hit a new low in April when he implemented a policy of prosecuting asylum seekers and added new asylum restrictions aimed at victims of physical abuse and gang violence. Since that time, an estimated 3,700 families have been forcibly separated, and Americans across the political spectrum have reacted with outrage. The protest was held near the white “tent cities” that hold hundreds of detained children, and was organized as an outlet for that energy. Speakers called upon attendees to leverage that outrage by voting in November’s midterm elections.
Dolores Huerta at Tornillo today: Vote for the immigrant children and families this November! #EndFamilyDetention #FamiliesBelongTogether https://t.co/HVXWNB3q98 pic.twitter.com/GWTRZ3zxBO
— PFAW (@peoplefor) June 24, 2018
Notable speakers at the event included former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro and actor Rob Reiner. Castro said that the issue was no longer a partisan one, saying, “This is an issue about what is right and what is wrong.” From the podium, civil rights leader and PFAW board member Dolores Huerta echoed these sentiments, and asked the crowd, “Why don’t we use our tax dollars, and I think everybody here would agree, to give these families decent shelter, take them out of cages, take them out of detention, take them out of imprisonment?” She also urged Donald Trump to stop “labeling immigrant refugees as illegal” and to “obey asylum laws,” prompting chants of “Si se puede!”
Her call to immigration rights activists and progressives across the country was clear: stand up for immigrant children and families this November by showing up at the ballot box. PFAW political director Lizet Ocampo echoed Huerta, saying, “Millions of Americans are in despair right now, but there’s one thing we can do to fight back and tell Trump enough is enough: vote.”