Democratic Lawmakers Join Family Separation Protests at Detention Centers from Texas to New Jersey

Protests have erupted nationwide against the Trump administration's new policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. Most of the parents apprehended by Customs and Border Patrol are now charged with criminal entry-and, in many cases, criminal re-entry-then taken to jails or prisons to serve their time before they are sent to immigrant detention centers. In the meantime, their children are being sent to shelters and foster care programs around the country. The Associated Press reports that between April 19 and May 31, nearly 2,000 children were separated from their parents. Hundreds of protesters also met at a family processing center in McAllen, Texas, where nearly half of all children have been removed from their parents. And in New Jersey, a group of Democratic lawmakers visited a private immigrant detention facility in the town of Elizabeth to speak with asylum-seeking parents held there after they were separated from their children. Meanwhile, on Sunday, in Houston, people marched in the rain outside a former warehouse and homeless shelter where the government plans to detain hundreds of separated children, including many who are a so-called tender age-children who are younger than 12 years old.