New Britain residents joined in a rally on June 21, 2018 in opposition to the actions of Republican President Donald Trump in which children have been taken from their parents at the U.S. border.
U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) invited people, “to a rally demanding [an] end to inhumane separation of children at the border.”
The group, “Rallies for Humanity,” said the rally was organized to, “demand immediate action to end the inhumane practice of forcibly separating children from parents at the border.”
Vanessa Cardoso spoke at the rally. She is the daughter of New Britain New Britain resident Mariano Cardoso who has been facing possible deportation after being a U.S. resident for twenty-seven years. In December, he was granted a last-minute stay, relieving him of the immediate threat of deportation.
Residents attending the rally, which was held at the Charter Oak Family Community Health Center in Hartford, were joined by political leaders from around the state.
While Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies have hit New Britain hard, with longtime residents facing deportation proceedings, the Trump administration policy of deliberately separating the children of families crossing into the U.S. from their parents has drawn widespread condemnation.
While Trump has reversed his policy of taking children from their parents, as the Washington Post reports, there is no clear prospect that the 2,300 children already separated will be reunited with their parents. The Post quoted Natalia Cornelio of the Texas Civil Rights Project, as saying, “Either the government wasn’t thinking at all about how they were going to put these families back together, or they decided they just didn’t care.”
