Free Our Future March

June 30 2018

“Long before the Trump administration implemented its “zero tolerance” immigration enforcement policy in 2018, it was already separating children from their parents as part of a “pilot program” conducted in the El Paso, Texas, area and along other parts of the border.

Under the El Paso program, begun in mid-2017, adults who crossed the border without permission – a misdemeanor for a first-time offender – were detained and criminally charged. No exceptions were made for parents arriving with young children. The children were taken from them, and parents were unable to track or reunite with their children because the government failed to create a system to facilitate reunification.

By late 2017, the government was separating families along the length of the U.S.-Mexico border, including families arriving through official ports of entry.

On May 7, 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had implemented a “zero tolerance” policy, dictating that all migrants who cross the border without permission, including those seeking asylum, be referred to the DOJ for prosecution. Undocumented asylum seekers were imprisoned, and any accompanying children under the age of 18 were handed over to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which shipped them miles away from their parents and scattered them among 100 Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) shelters and other care arrangements across the country.

Hundreds of these children, including infants and toddlers, were under the age of 5.” - SOURCE: Southern POVERTY LAW CENTER, ‘family separation under the trump administration, a timeline.’

In May of 2018, I was involved with organizing a March in Minneapolis alongside many other activists and organizers. The march was part of over 600 marches that happened across the United States the weekend of June 30th, 2018 that protested the human rights violations at our borders, family separation, the criminalization of migrants, and the existence of ICE. Working for the groups below, most notably Navigate MN and CTUL, I worked alongside others to do my part in organizing and mobilizing people using social media and digital organizing tactics. We estimate that anywhere from 7k to 10k citizens were there marching with us.

Hosts & Co-hosts

HOSTS: Navigate MN •CTUL•Black Immigrant Collective • RELEASE MN 8•CAIR-Minnesota (CAIR-MN)

COHOSTS: ACLU of Minnesota•African Career, Education and Resource, Inc. (ACER)•AFSCME Council 5•AFSCME 3800•Asian American Organizing Project•Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA)•La Asamblea De Derechos Civiles•MN AFL-CIO•BlackLivesMatter Saint Paul•Black Visions Collective•The Children's Defense Fund•Education Minnesota•Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota• Indigenous Roots Cultural Arts Center • MAPE•Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation•MIRAC - Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee•Minnesota Nurses Association •Minnesota Immigrant Movement•NEA Today•OutFront Minnesota•Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for Empowerment•SEIU Healthcare Minnesota•SEIU Local 26•Voices For Racial Justice• Women's March Minnesota