Nearly 600 demonstrators were arrested Thursday in a mass act of civil disobedience at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, after women from nearly all 50 states descended on the nation’s capital to demand an end to the administration’s barbaric “zero tolerance” policy tearing migrant families apart at the U.S./Mexico border.
Among the protesters were members of Congress, including Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Congress member Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, and Congress member Pramila Japayal of Washington state. Demonstrators chanted, "abolish ICE, shut it down” and covered themselves in foil blankets similar to the ones used by migrants in detention.
Above all, the women want to know where the hell the children are.
Despite Donald Trump’s sham executive order, he has no plan set in motion on how he’ll reunite the more than 2,000 children he already kidnapped from parents within the past several weeks. While a judge recently ordered an end to most family separation and reunification of children and parents within 30 days, "only a handful of children have been released from custody, according to the latest available statistics”:
Devastated parents are still searching for their kids. Officials are pointing fingers over who's responsible and have yet to release details about how families will be reunited.
There’s blame alright, and it belongs with the administration officials—including Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, and White House aide and white supremacist Stephen Miller—that created this crisis in the first place. One former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official has already said that there’s a real possibility some kids may never see their parents again.
Saturday, June 30: It's time to show up in person, representing the millions of Americans disgusted that these acts are being carried out in our name, and demand an end to the Trump's "zero-tolerance policy" immediately.
According to U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw—a George W. Bush appointee—the federal government must reunite children under five years old by July 10, all children by July 26, and connect all children with their parents via telephone by July 6. But grief-stricken parents have already described excruciating attempts to locate their kids. “Most do not speak English. Many know nothing about their children’s whereabouts. And some say their calls to the government’s 1-800 information hotline have gone unanswered.”
Adding to this chaos is that while children have been scattered to Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) facilities all across the nation, some parents have already been deported without them:
A woman in Guatemala who was deported without her 8-year-old son has had to find a U.S. lawyer from her cinderblock home on the outskirts of Guatemala City to help her get Anthony back.
One detained parent told Congress member Jayapal that the paper she was given that purportedly had her children’s information on it was wrong—they were not her children at all. This is the ultimate horror story for any parent who has given up everything in order to give their child a chance, and a horror story perpetrated by the federal government.
"The United States government has more than enough resources to get this job done as long as it treats it as an urgent priority," said Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has sued to reunite many separated families, including a Congolese asylum-seeker who passed her initial interview yet had her child torn from her for months. "There are little children who are being traumatized every day they're separated from their parents,” he continued, “crying themselves to sleep, wondering whether they're ever going to see their parents again.”
The outrage from the hundreds of women who took over the Hart Senate Office Building will continue on Saturday, when thousands of people are expected to take part in a national day of action in support of migrant families and in opposition to the barbaric policies of the Trump administration. According to Congress member Jayapal, who was arrested in the Thursday protest, more than 300,000 people have already signed up to participate in a rally near them.
"As a member of Congress, it’s a shame that this government, my government, is doing this to children,” she told Elle. “I think it is a really beautiful thing that people are allowing themselves to feel so deeply the tragedy of what we’re doing. And that is what’s turning them out, so I’m just grateful to people who refuse to let this die and who are keeping it at the forefront even with all the important issues we have in front of us."