ATLANTA - Organizers say it took only a day to rally more than fifty people to wave protest signs at midday in the heart of Buckhead. They were there to implore the federal government to stop its newly enforced practice of separating children from adults detained crossing the U.S. border illegally.
By design, the rally was outside the office of U.S. Senator David Perdue, one of President Trump’s most vocal backers in Congress.
Protest organizer Mary Huber said the group had one goal: to reverse the practice of separating children from their families.
“This isn’t about securing the borders. This is about keeping children with their families. That’s all. That’s all we want,” said Huber.
Senator Perdue was not present for the demonstration. He was in Washington, where he sidestepped questions about the border detainees.
“Thank you for your interest but I just want to make sure this few minutes that we have didn’t get hijacked about the current shiny object of the day,” Perdue said.
Fellow U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), was more publicly willing to find a way to end the separations at the border.
“All of us are horrified of the images we see. We see little boys and little girls pulled away from their mothers and fathers,” said Cruz.
Georgia’s Republican Governor Nathan Deal, a former congressman, says the government for years has separated immigrant families when children were natural-born U.S. citizens but their parents had crossed illegally. Deal thinks the difference now is an increase in the number of families, with children, who are presenting themselves at the border to seek asylum.
“I am hopeful this situation will encourage the members of Congress to begin to work cooperatively toward what appears to require a more comprehensive solution to the issue of both legal and illegal immigration,” said Governor Deal.
