
There’s no need here to relitigate the abject cruelty that the Trump administration’s recent immigration policy changes represent. But it’s worth pointing out that, though the president backed down under immense pressure and has seen his efforts to crack down on refugees blocked by the courts and Congress, thousands of migrant children are still being held by the federal government, separated from their parents for no good reason.
So, tomorrow, in Washington, D.C., and all over the country, people will march to demand that the government reunite immigrant families—including in downtown Raleigh.
Headed up by local residents David and Whitney Denney, the march has been organized through the North Carolina branch of Families Belong Together Coalition. They’ve also partnered with North Carolina Asian Americans Together and El Pueblo, two local nonprofits. On the Facebook event page, at least fifteen hundred people have signaled that they plan to attend, with another five thousand expressing interest.
David Denney says that while the march is an inherently political event, they don’t want it to be partisan.
“We are just trying to have a response to the Trump policy and ensure kids are reunited with their families,” he says. “Our message is still, ‘Look, there are kids still separated from their families, they are not criminals, and they deserve due process, even if the Trump administration thinks they don’t.’”
While originally organized to protest the separation policy, Denney says the march has been tweaked to meet the latest developments in the immigration storm, such as the recent order from a California judge that children be reunited with their families within thirty days. In a post on the event page, the coalition said that there are still problems to address going forward.
“We are still marching!” the organization wrote. “Trump’s latest executive order does not truly solve the problem of separating families and violating fundamental human rights—not to mention his known duplicitousness. The Trump administration has no plan to reunite the children already separated from their families and may now incarcerate families indefinitely. Significant problems remain.”
The march will begin at 10:00 a.m. at City Plaza in Raleigh and will end at Bicentennial Plaza, across from the General Assembly, where there will be a brief rally with comments from guest speakers.


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