Well bundled up in the bitterly cold weather, children in Brooklyn on Saturday morning joined Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke (NY-09) in walking to support migrant children at the US southern border.
After receiving letters from local youth expressing concern about what’s happening at the southern border, Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, said she put together Brooklyn’s “Children Support Children’s Walk.”
“Today’s walk provided local children and community members who are disgusted with what’s happening at the southern border an opportunity to come together in solidarity against the Trump Administration’s racist and xenophobic policies,” Clarke told Caribbean Life afterwards.
“We have a Bigot-in-Chief who is separating families at our southern border,” she added. “Donald Trump is a racist who is using children as pawns in his anti-immigrant agenda.
“But no child nor person should be subjected to live in inhumane conditions, let alone die from where the American government has caged them,” the congresswoman continued. “As a country founded on checks and balances, we must provide a check on what is happening at our border.”
She said that Saturday’s – led by children from the community – “boldly provides a check on Trump, his administration and those who blindly follow his racist actions.”
“Today, we walk to show the world that we will resist – that we are resisting Trump’s border policies,” Clarke said.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) estimated that thousands of children at the southern border have been separated from their families due to Trump’s policies.
Clarke said the actual number of separated kids is unknown and is explained in the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) inspector general’s report in October.
“DHS struggled to provide accurate, complete, reliable data on family separations,” the report says.
As they walked from Atlantic Avenue, in front of Barclays Center Plaza, to Vanderbilt Avenue, and ended at Grand Army Plaza, participants chanted: “Release the children at our border” and “Families belong together.”
The walk started and was followed by a program including remarks from local children and speakers from New York State Sen. Kevin Parker’s office, Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo’s office, New Sanctuary Coalition, Don’t Separate Families, Brownsville Collaborative Middle School, CAMBA, NYPD Explorers, MESA and MACACADEMY.
