Support gives detained immigrants ‘hope'; Thousands show at SeaTac detention center

SEATTLE — Across the country, people met Saturday to protest immigrant family separations and the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy.

Near Seattle, the Families Belong Together Rally was at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac. On the event page, 1,400 people said they would attend, but Saturday morning, thousands were there.

A representative of the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project spoke to the large crowd on how she's communicated the protests to those detained in SeaTac.

"We let them (the clients detained) know that outside of those walls where they are, there are people supporting them," the representative said. "And that makes them very hopeful."

Nearby, signs in the air read, "Holding kids hostage is an act of terrorism" and "The time for complacency is over."

A woman in the crowd wiped tears from her eyes when another speaker shared personal memories of her loved one being deported.

"We are here to speak with one voice," Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant said privately when speaking with KIRO at the rally. "To demand the end to detentions and deportations."

Two days before the SeaTac rally, Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal was arrested in Washington, D.C., along with hundreds of other women, protesting immigrant family separations.

Jayapal said she was proud to be arrested for protesting the “inhumane and cruel” zero tolerance policy.

“This is about right and wrong,” Jayapal said in a video Thursday after her arrest. "We have to put ourselves on the line."

Jayapal encouraged everyone to attend the protests June 30.

On June 26, a judge set a hard deadline, ordering U.S. border authorities to reunite separated families within 30 days.

Trump administration officials have been sending babies and young children separated from their parents to "tender age" shelters in Texas, the Associated Press reports. Many of the children are under 5 years old. Some are so young they have not yet learned to talk.

Gov. Jay Inslee said that at least nine children affected by the zero tolerance policy are in Washington state. On June 20, Inslee announced $1.2 million in civil legal aid funding for immigrants and refugees.

On Father's Day, people gathered at Seattle's Westlake against the separation of families illegally crossing the U.S. border and those separated while seeking asylum.

Nearly 2,000 minors have been separated from their families at the border over a six-week period in a crackdown on illegal entries, according to Department of Homeland Security figures obtained by the Associated Press.

The Seattle rally came after undocumented mothers were forcibly separated from their children and transported to SeaTac from the southern border for detainment.

"Every father should have the right to nurture their children," Jayapal said to the crowd on Father's Day. "And there are 32 men at the federal prison in SeaTac that were part of the 206 that were transferred from the southern border."

A rally against the detainment in SeaTac was also held June 9.

At that rally, Jayapal was able to meet with detained women for hours.

"I was able to meet with all of the women that are being held there. ... They come from 16 countries. The vast majority of them are seeking political asylum," Jayapal said. "A huge number of them are mothers whose children were taken away from them when they were apprehended at the border or when they turned themselves in."

"They literally never had a chance to say goodbye to their children," Jayapal said.

She also said the majority of detained mothers had no idea where their children were.

Jayapal called the separation "heartbreaking."

"This does not need legislation," Jayapal said at the Father's Day rally in Seattle. "The only thing that needs to happen is Donald Trump needs to say, 'No. I am not going to do this anymore.'"

Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson shared a letter after reports first surfaced of the women detained in SeaTac, asking for more and immediate information on asylum seekers taken to SeaTac.

Under a zero tolerance policy announced by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Homeland Security officials are referring all cases of illegal entry for criminal prosecution, according to the Associated Press.

U.S. protocol prohibits detaining children with parents because the children are not charged with a crime and the parents are.

On June 30, the thousands gathered in SeaTac chanted together, "We are immigrants. We are community. We are one."

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