VIDEO: New Yorkers protest immigrant family separation policies
As part of a nationwide rally, hundreds of people gathered at Brooklyn Borough Hall on Thursday to protest the federal government’s policy to forcibly separate immigrant children from their parents when apprehended at the border by immigration authorities.
The policy has taken away hundreds of kids as young as 1 to 5 years old who came with their families, who are often times looking for asylum.
“This policy actually has not only been deemed punitive by the United Nations, it violates our commitments with the international community, it violates the international declaration of human rights, it violates 1967 protocol on the status of refugees,” said Amanda Sawyer of Families Belong Together, the group that organized the rally.