Thousands of protesters marched from Downtown Manhattan to Brooklyn on Saturday in support of migrant families who were separated when they entered the country illegally\u2026<\/b>
\nThousands of protesters marched from Downtown Manhattan to Brooklyn on Saturday in support of migrant families who were separated when they entered the country illegally or seeking asylum.
\u201cThis is the first time in my life I\u2019ve come out to protest. And I lived through Vietnam, through Roe v. Wade,\u201d said Lisa Zieger, 66.
\u201cI\u2019m here because I\u2019m disgusted, outraged, and frightened by our government,\u201d the Newark resident continued. \u201cI\u2019ve never felt so personally threatened before. It\u2019s important to come out, to put your body on the line.\u201d
Eleanor Evans, 9, said it was her first protest, too. She and her sister are the children of an immigrant themselves. \u201cWe really respect the kids who have been separated from their parents,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s terrible.\u201d
Eleanor was one of thousands who marched across Brooklyn Bridge, where many drivers honked in support. Organizers said 20,000 turned up, though the NYPD declined to confirm the figure.
One woman in New York City painted \u201cWe Have to Care\u201d on the back of her dress, a reference to the coat First Lady Melania Trump wore when she went to visit detained children last week. That attire had \u201cI really don\u2019t care, do U?\u201d on the back.
The focus was on the roughly 2,000 children who have been separated from their families under President Trump\u2019s \u201czero-tolerance\u201d immigration policy. The marchers continued recent weeks\u2019 pressure on Trump, who last week signed an executive order ending his policy of separating kids from their parents at the U. S.-Texas border.
Many of the marchers also joined recent calls to abolish and replace Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency at the center of the \u201czero-tolerance\u201d policy. \u201cAbolish ICE\u201d was a popular sign on the Brooklyn Bridge and elsewhere around the country.
That idea was the topic of two Saturday morning tweets from Trump, who reassured \u201cthe brave men and women of ICE, do not worry or lose your spirit\u201d and said they were doing a \u201cfantastic job.\u201d
The protesters saw things differently.
\u201cThis is our \u2018throw your body on the gears of the machine\u2019 moment,\u201d said David Siffert, 34, of the East Village, who marched in a suit despite heat that reached over 90 degrees. \u201cI came from the airport to be here. It\u2019s important. It shows people how we feel. If people are willing to show up in the streets for something, they\u2019re going to vote for it.\u201d
Dorrie Lubowsky, 55, of Midwood, Brooklyn, said she was there because she is a child of two Holocaust survivors.
In Queens, about 2,000 people marched from Jackson Heights to Astoria. The demonstrators included Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated the powerful Rep. Joseph Crowley in Tuesday\u2019s Democratic primary.
She urged the marchers to keep fighting against \u201cdisplacement and fear.\u201d
\u201cI am confident and hopeful that it will not last long and that it will not last forever, because of every single individual who\u2019s on this block today,\u201d Ocasio-Cortez told the crowd.
Mayor Bill de Blasio offered support for the marchers while attending a citizenship event at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
\u201cWe need comprehensive immigration reform and we need new agencies to replace ICE,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a way to handle immigration properly, and we have to start working for that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

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