They took a stand — with their strollers.
Local families and activists joined Borough President Adams for a “stroller march” through Sunset Park on June 24 to protest the Trump administration’s family separation policies, which have led to more than 2,300 kids being separated from their parents at the southern border since early May. Adams said it was important for Brooklynites to rally against the policies, which he said deeply disturbed him.
“Hearing children desperately cry out for their parents, as [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents hold them in detention on our border, cuts me to my core,” Adams said. “Their cries will not fall on deaf ears in Brooklyn. We must mobilize to reunite families now.”
Marchers met at D’Emic Playground, on Third Avenue between 34th and 35th streets, and walked a half mile to the Metropolitan Detention Complex, on Third Avenue between 29th and 30th streets. Reps from citywide organizations — including the New York Immigration Coalition, Anti-Defamation League New York, and Make the Road New York — joined Adams and local activists to speak out against the policies when they arrived at the detention center.
One mother trekked all the way from Astoria in the distant borough of Queens with her two daughters — five-year-old Ilaria and seven-year-old Alessia — to the protest because she couldn’t imagine what parents separated from their children at the border were going through, she said.
“As a mom of two young daughters, I just really can’t imagine being separated from them, and them not having me to turn to at any given moment,” said Anna Success.
After many Republican lawmakers condemned the administration’s family separation policy, President Trump signed an executive order on June 20 ending further separation of kids from their parents at the border. But the order did not address the more than 2,000 kids who have already been separated from their parents, and the order still requires families who cross the border illegally to be prosecuted, but requires officials to detain families together while awaiting updates on their case, according to the New York Times.
On June 24 — the same day as the Sunset Park march — the administration announced it had reunited more than 500 migrant kids with their parents.
