Tens of thousands gathered across the U.S. for Families Belong Together marches on Saturday, which took place in over 700 locations, including Boston, Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. According to CNN, protesters organized around three main tenets: that families separated at the U.S. border be reunited immediately, that the government end family detention, and that President Donald Trump’s administration discontinue its zero-tolerance immigration policy.
A number of high-profile figures—including celebrities, politicians, and activists—took to the stage at various Families Belong Together marches to share their own stories of immigration and calls for change. America Ferrera spoke as a child of Honduran immigrants; Diane Guerrero shared her experience, having been separated from her family as a child; a 12-year-old named Leah opened up about her fears of losing her mom to deportation. Read on for some of the most poignant speeches from various events across the country.
Diane Guerrero in Washington, D.C.
“I am here today as a woman who as a young child was separated from her family,” Guerrero, who’s appeared on Orange Is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, told the crowd in Washington, D.C. “I am here today to be painfully honest about the damage these government policies do to human beings, do to kids. Even some 17 years later, I can still remember how it felt when I first cried out for my parents and they couldn’t answer. I have to believe that this an opportunity to rise above the tyranny, the ignorance, the malpractice and believe in change. This is a chance for us to come together as a nation and rise above division and fear. Only then can we stop the separation of families and stop the policies that place children in cages.”
Rep. Maxine Waters in Los Angeles
“How dare you?” Waters asked the Trump administration, in California. “How dare you take the babies from mothers’ arms? How dare you take the children and send them all across the country into so-called detention centers?”
“You are putting them in cages. You are putting them in jails,” the congresswoman continued. “And you think we’re going to stand by and allow you to do that? I don’t think so. Donald Trump, you think you can get away with everything, but you have gone too far when you are trying to break up families in the way that you do.”
Leah in Washington, D.C.
“I am here today because the government is separating and detaining refugee parents and children at the border who are looking for safety,” the 12-year-old said. “Our government also continues to separate U.S. citizen children like me from their parents every day. This is evil. It needs to stop. It makes me sad to know that children can’t be with their parents. I don’t understand why they’re being so mean to us children. Don’t they know how much we love our family? Don’t they have a family too? Why don’t they care about us children?”
“I live with the constant fear of losing my mom to deportation,” she continued. “My mom is strong, beautiful, and brave. She is also a person who taught me how to speak up when I see things that aren’t fair.”
“ICE wants to take away my mom from me. I don’t like to live with this fear,” Leah told the crowd. “It’s scary. I can’t sleep, I can’t study, I am stressed,” she told the crowd.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren in Boston
“The President’s deeply immoral actions have made it obvious: We need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom, starting by replacing ICE with something that reflects our morality and that works,” Warren said in her speech.
“President Trump seems to think the only way to have immigration rules is rip parents from their families, is to treat rape victims and refugees like terrorists and to put children in cages,” she told her constituents. “This is ugly, this is wrong, and this is not the way to run our country.”
America Ferrera in Washington, D.C.
“I am here not only as a brand new mother, as the proud child of Honduran immigrants and not only an American who sees it as her duty to be here defending justice,” the actress said. “I am here as a human being with a beating heart, who can feel pain, who understands compassion and who can easily imagine what it must feel like to struggle the way families are struggling right now. It is easy to imagine that I would hope that if it was my family being torn apart, if it was my brother being arbitrarily criminalized, if it was my sister who was being banned, that someone would stand up for me and my family.”
She continued: “It is that simple. This fight does not belong to one group of people, one color of people, one race of people, one gender — it belongs to all of us. What makes humans remarkable is our capacity to imagine. We have an imagination, let’s use it.”
Ferrara also read a letter from a grandfather who wants his separated granddaughter, who’s currently being held in Texas, to be able to live with him in California: “I got the impression the investigator thought I didn’t make enough money. I know I don’t make enough money, but I make enough to care for (you). Everything I have I will give to you.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda in Washington, D.C.
The Hamilton creator sang a lullaby for the kids separated from their parents to the crowd.
John Legend and Chrissy Teigen in Los Angeles
“Making America great doesn’t mean building walls to keep people out; it means continuing to embrace the dreams of immigrants who add to our culture, our economy, and our humanity,” Teigen told the crowd while holding her son, Miles, before introducing her husband, John Legend. “Making America greater most definitely doesn’t mean turning asylum-seekers away or kidnapping their kids to turn them away from coming here.”
Legend performed a new song, “Preach,” which he introduced with a speech. He said: “If you’re committed to this kind of love, it means you believe in justice, but it’s not easy. It’s not a passive activity, it requires you opening your eyes to injustice. To see the world through the eyes of another you’ve got to read; you’ve got to travel to other neighborhoods and other parts of the world. You may have to get your hands dirty. You can’t just talk about it or tweet about it. You’ve got to do something.”
Alicia Keys in Washington, D.C.
“My seven-year-old son is here with me today. His name is Egypt. And I couldn’t even imagine not being able to find him,” Keys said. “I couldn’t even imagine being separated from him or scared about how he is being treated, so this is all of our fight, because if it can happen to any child, it can happen to my child and your child and all of our children.”
She continued by reading a letter from a mom who was separated from her child, which said, in part: “I had spent nights without sleep, searching and searching for my son, not knowing where he was, a torture day by day.”
“Our democracy is at stake,” Keys said, after finishing the letter. “Our humanity is at stake. We are out here to save the soul of our nation. We need all the children reunited to their parents. We demand to end the zero humanity policy. We need to save the Supreme Court and we need to vote, because when we vote, we win.”
Kerry Washington in New York City
“This country comes from immigration,” Washington began. “Slavery is a part of my legacy, I understand the legacy of family separation because slavery is a part of my story and so is immigration. My grandparents on my mother’s side came to this country through Ellis Island in the ’30s from the Caribbean, and they came here like every immigrant seeking better opportunities because of a lack of opportunity in their land — running from poverty, running from racism, running from a place where they couldn’t fulfill a dream. I am the fulfillment of their dream. And I will not stand for somebody else turning this country further down the road of racism and disenfranchisement. Enough is enough!”
She also read a letter from a migrant mother, Margarita, who had been separated from her son—he was in Kansas City, Missouri; she in Portland, Oregon: “‘First they tell you that in a few weeks you will have your child, then in a month then in another month, but they never fulfill their promises. With such delay, I have asked myself, what am I doing wrong? Have I not sent everything they asked for me? I want them to at least allow me to see him one day, if for a while. What mother would not want to have her son in her arms. If only for a moment.'”
Watch Washington’s speech below, or read the full transcript here.
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Cher in Los Angeles
“What I really want to try to impress on you is to vote,” the singer said. “You know, I’ve been through 11 Presidents in my life, and I thought I saw everything, but I have never seen anything like this…. When I was little, women were not introduced by their name; they were introduced by their husband’s name—’this is Mrs. John Smith.’ We had no choice over our bodies when I was little… There was no birth control; there was no such thing as your husband raping you, you know? If a husband beat up his wife and the police came, they would just go, ‘Hey buddy, walk around, you know? Walk around the corner, cool off, and come back.’ So what I’m saying to women is get your friends and vote. Because if you don’t vote, you will not recognize this country and you will lose everything that you will just now take for granted, every right that you have. And I’m not being dramatic—well, maybe I am—but I mean it, OK? I’m trying to impress this upon you because you’ve been through a time, you live in time, when women have freedom. I remember a time when women didn’t have freedom, and I don’t want to see this happen to you.”
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