Women’s March organizers plan protest against family separation

The Women’s March plans to hold a protest against President Trump’s family separation policy on June 28 in Washington, D.C.

The website for the event describes the protest as a “mass civil disobedience” and says “direct action training and legal support will be provided to all women participating in nonviolent civil disobedience.” 

“We call on women from all communities to descend on our nation’s capital and demand the safety and freedom of immigrant families and children,” the website states.

We are calling for all women to join us for a mass civil disobedience in DC on Thursday, 6/28, to demand this administration stop criminalizing undocumented immigrants and tearing children away from their parents.#WomenDisobey to #EndFamilySeparation https://t.co/p3YMOgqvqf pic.twitter.com/fbDp67vLaN

— Women’s March (@womensmarch) June 20, 2018

How outraged are you? What are you willing to risk? Calling mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmas, aunties – all women of good moral conscience. Time to step up our activism. #WomenDisobey https://t.co/1C6AQgMArm

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) June 20, 2018

On June 30, the group Families Belong Together will also coordinate protests in various cities against the policy. 

The protests come as President Trump announced Wednesday that he will sign an executive order ending his policy of separating children from their families a the border.

The order could come as son as Wednesday evening and comes after the policy faced widespread backlash including from many Republican lawmakers. But the administration intends to keep in place its zero tolerance policy, which prosecutes those caught coming across the border illegally.

Organizer Linda Sarsour said the group was still going ahead to protest the detention o families.

“The Women’s March and our allies are advocating against child camps but we’re not advocating for family camps,” Sarsour told The Hill.

“We don’t trust this administration to follow through. We’re also demanding answers for the hundreds of children who have already been separated from their families with no clarification about what that reunification plan looks like. This administration has not told us how they plan to reunite children who have already been separated from their families,” she added.

“We are focusing on this very important message: we are not advocating for family incarceration.” 

The Women’s March account tweeted the organization does not support “incarcerat[ing] children and families together.”

“Family detention camps are NOT the answer,” the account tweeted. “We need long term sustainable change.” 

When we say #KeepFamiliesTogether, when we advocate against child camps – we do not mean that we should incarcerate children and families together. Family detention camps are NOT the answer. We need long term sustainable change. #WomenDisobey #AbolishICE

— Women’s March (@womensmarch) June 20, 2018

People across the U.S. have mobilized against the policies, hosting marches and protests in recent days. In Portland, over 1,000 protesters blocked entrances to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center, shutting it down indefinitely.  

The first Women’s March was held on January 21, 2017, the day after Trump’s inauguration. Since then, the Women’s March organizers have hosted more protests, notably a second Women’s March in 2018.