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Father’s Day Protests Demand End to Practice of Separating Children from Parents

HeadlineJun 18, 2018

Outrage is mounting over the Trump administration’s practice of separating immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border as part of the crackdown against immigrants and asylum seekers. The Associated Press reports nearly 2,000 children have been separated from their parents since April 19. The New York Times is reporting some parents have been deported without their children and with no information about how the family will be reunited. On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence was interrupted by opponents of family separation during a speech in Columbus, Ohio.

Vice President Mike Pence: “… including our historic tax cuts.”

Protester: “Why are you ripping children from their families?”

Vice President Mike Pence: “Let’s hear it for America First Policies, that brought all of us here together today. Well, I’m here—I’m here today, first and foremost—I’m here today, first and foremost, to say thank you.”

Protester: “It’s cruel!”

Vice President Mike Pence: “Thank you to almost all of you.”

People were yelling, through Pence’s speech, “Why are you ripping children from their families?”

Over the weekend, there were protests at detention centers nationwide. In Tornillo, Texas, Democratic Congressmember Beto O’Rourke and former El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar helped lead a march to a newly opened tent city where migrant children are being held.

Hundreds of protesters also rallied at a family processing center in McAllen, Texas, while hundreds more protested in Houston, Texas, outside a former warehouse and homeless shelter where the government plans to detain hundreds of separated children. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, a group of Democratic lawmakers visited a private immigrant detention facility in the town of Elizabeth to speak with asylum-seeking parents held there after they were separated from their children.

This all comes as, in South Texas, at least five people died Sunday when an SUV carrying undocumented immigrants crashed after being chased at high speeds by Border Patrol agents. We’ll have more on the protests and growing outrage over family detention after headlines, and we’ll speak to a whistleblower who quit his job at a Tuscon shelter for unaccompanied minors and separated children.

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