The immigrant rights movement has been outraged and energized by the recent murder of two immigrant women on the U.S.-Mexico border and by the new Trump administration policy of separating parents seeking asylum in the U.S. from their children. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, often sends children of detained immigrants thousands of miles away and many parents are not told where they are.
In response to the violence and the government policy separating families, protests were held around the U.S. in recent days. On June 7, about 150 people gathered in Hartford, Connecticut, outside the federal building that houses immigration court, to denounce the killings and the separation of parents from their children.
One Hartford protest organizer dipped her hand in red paint and applied handprints across the faces of a dozen protesters to symbolize the violence against immigrants at the border. Activists from several groups spoke, followed by a “die-in” in front of the building, which police attempted to break up by threatening to arrest participants who didn’t leave. Most opted to leave civil disobedience for another day.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus was at the protest rally and brings us two of the speeches. We hear first from Mirka Dominguez Salinas, an organizer with Make the Road Connecticut, then is followed by Megan Fountain, with Unidad Latina en Accion, who is in grad school at the University of Connecticut.
