A small crowd gethered in downtown Riverside last week to protest the Trump administration's policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border. KVCR's Benjamin Purper has more.
Protesters gathered inside the Universalist Unitarian Church in Downtown Riverside for the “IE Families Belong Together” Rally on Thursday, June 14th. It was put together by the Inland Empire Women’s March, with speakers from organizations like Inland Empire Immigrant Youth Collective, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, and more.
Jennifer Carson is an advocate for children with incarcerated parents. Speaking inside the church, Carson said she didn’t expect undocumented immigrant children to become her focus until now.
“I have been advocating for about 20 years for this population,” Carson said, “and it never occurred to me that I would be switching from advocating for children of prisoners to children who are in prison. Like, toddlers who are in prison.”
Carson told the story of a U.S. Senator, Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley, who recently visited a detention center in Texas. Carson recounted the senator’s story of seeing children laying on the floor in cage-like structure, covered by a space blanket – which Carson says is basically tinfoil.
“I repeat,” Carson told the crowd, “a U.S. senator saw children laying on concrete, in cages, on foil.”
Alfonso Maldonado, an attorney with the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, also gave a speech inside the church.
“Can you all imagine being in a foreign place and not knowing the language, and as a parent having your child being ripped away from your arms? Now can you imagine being that child who is being taken away from their parents?”
After a few speakers, the crowd left the church to march down Mission Inn Avenue, chanting and holdings signs. There was also a performance from American Idol contestant and UCR alum Rocky Peter, who sang an original song for the crowd.
There were no counter-protesters or hecklers at the demonstration. But supporters of the family separation policy argue that it’s the migrant parents who are responsible for the separation, because they crossed the border illegally with their children.
On Friday, the White House sent out a press release saying Congressional Democrats are responsible for family separation – but of American families, not immigrant ones.
It alleged that the Democrats’ “open border laws and policies are responsible for the permanent separation of too many American families whose loved ones have been lost to illegal alien crime.”
The release did not address the Trump administration’s practice of separating undocumented immigrant children from their parents at the border.
