Thousands of protesters clad in white and armed with signs denouncing President Donald Trump rallied Saturday in more than 90-degree heat against the Trump administration’s immigration policy and the “zero-tolerance” approach that has separated children from their parents after they crossed the border from Mexico to the U.S.
Tens of thousands gathered in Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., Saturday to call for an end to family separation. Braving a scorching 95-degree heat, people had come from all over the country to attend the Families Belong Together event. Organizers had three demands for President Trump: Reunite families, end family detention, and reverse the “zero tolerance” policy.
Tens of thousands of protesters marched in cities across the United States on Saturday to demand the Trump administration reverse an immigration crackdown that has separated children from parents at the U.S-Mexico border and led to plans for military-run detention camps.
This is not a time for the marketplace of ideas. There are people who believe that immigrant children are criminals. There are people who act as though queer folks are an abomination. There are people who consider every black and brown person to be a threat. These ideas are not worth debating. Logical conversations will not dissuade oppressors. Civility has never transformed the reality of the marginalized and it never will.
Religious leaders must make a direct appeal to every person who plays a role: refuse to obey inhumane orders. When the order is to take children from the arms of their parents or to prevent traumatized children from seeking comfort in each other’s embrace, religious leaders must insist that workers tell their superiors that they will not comply.
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“There may be political, economic, and personal reasons for an unwillingness to love immigrants, but according to Jesus, there are no spiritual ones."
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A uniquely Chinese immigrant story has left white, Western moviegoers baffled.
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James 1:27 clearly states "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress ..." Yet Attorney General Jeff Sessions perverts the meaning of other biblical verses to justify his horrific treatment of migrant families and migrant children specifically.
In a way, it's a cruel joke that the majority used yesterday's decision to officially overturn the Korematsu v. United States decision of 1944 that upheld the government's right to intern Japanese Americans in concentration camps. While this was a welcome and long-overdue step, it's also a way for the conservative majority to attempt to wash its hands, Pilate-like, of the consequences of asserting that current and future presidents have the power to keep members of a disfavored group out of the country if they simply massage the language of their executive orders and proclamations sufficiently. As Justice Sotomayor argued in her dissent, it "merely replaces one gravely wrong decision with another." It's a slippery slope that risks pointing us backwards towards our shameful past, in which the high court long upheld the constitutionality of slavery, Jim Crow laws, the Chinese Exclusion Act, many grievous harms to Native American people and communities, and other horrors, all of which we rightfully recognize today as counter to the principles of the Constitution and the tenets of Christian faith.
The conservative Kennedy, who turns 82 in July and is the second-oldest justice on the nine-member court, has become one of the most consequential American jurists since joining the court in 1988 as an appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan. He proved instrumental in advancing gay rights, buttressing abortion rights and erasing political spending limits. His retirement takes effect on July 31, the court said.