Hundreds of protesters gathered Saturday in San Francisco’s Union Square to call on the incoming Biden administration to reverse the Trump era detention of migrant families in camps along the United States-Mexico border.
Harvey is originally from Nicaragua, and told KCBS Radio that he believes the detention of immigrant children at the border is inhumane.
“Imagine an immigrant child, who is just a child,” he said. “So, if we take out the whole ‘immigrant’ part, all parents, anyone who has a child, all of us would be out here protesting what’s happening in these cages.”
With the transition to a new government in January, the protesters want the Biden administration to make immigration reform a priority and close detainment camps.
“We absolutely have to treat ICE detainees and prisoners, incarcerated people, humanely, especially in the time of this crazy COVID,” said one protester, Montana.
The Trump administration has been criticized for separating hundreds of children from their families.
The detention of migrants at the border dates back to the Carter presidency, and continued all the way through the Obama presidency. However, the Trump administration took it a step further by disallowing any exceptions.
Mike, a mental health worker, worries about the children.
“There are children right now that are in need of mental health services, of schoolteachers, of love and compassion, and ICE and the troubled soldiers that are in these camps are not paying attention to nothing,” he said.
