Organizers of demonstrations expected to take place across all 50 states on Saturday are calling for Americans outraged by Donald Trump’s immigration policies and the prospect of a supreme court swinging sharply right to put aside party differences and protest with one voice.
“This is an all hands on deck, stop the madness moment. It’s not a red or blue thing,” the national protest organizer, Ai-jen Poo, told the Guardian.
More than 750 events are planned across the country on 30 June, under the slogan “Families belong together”, to protest against the separation of more than 2,000 children from their parents in recent weeks after they crossed the border illegally under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” crackdown.
Poo said the protests were primarily for people who had been horrified at the news of the separations and detentions, but she said the cause would widen into a show of opposition against Trump’s travel ban, which targets five Muslim-majority countries and was upheld by the supreme court this week, as well as the threat of Trump nominating a hard-right conservative for the supreme court seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy.
“What you are seeing is the downright refusal to accept this administration’s policies,” she said.
With the Fourth of July holiday approaching “this is a time when we reflect on where we are as a country and, right now, what we are going to do to take it back as the multiracial democracy we know and deserve”, she added.
Most children have not yet been reunited with their parents despite the president halting the summary separation policy and a judge this week ordering the administration to reunite families.
The largest demonstration is planned for Washington DC, with many thousands expected to gather close to the White House, including Poo, who is a union leader and the director of the national domestic workers alliance, the Hamilton musical creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and other figures such as the actor and activist America Ferrera. There will be a rally addressed by a mother who was separated from her…
