NEW YORK, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of people gathered in New York on Saturday to protest against the Trump administration's policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Under the burning sunshine, the marchers, old and young, men and women, clapped their hands and chanted slogans to speak out their outrage over the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy resulting in over 2,000 children separated from their families who crossed the border illegally.
"It is infinitely more important that we're taking the moment and the time to address what's happening," Yanira Castro, 47, a Puerto Rican, who moved to the United States at the age of eight and works as an artist in New York, told Xinhua.
Holding a banner, reading "family separation is the oldest form of state terror," Castro took her 10-year-old son, to join the protest.
While U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order ending the policy to separate parents and children at the border, most children haven't been reunited with their parents, marchers noted Saturday.
"It's unlawful. It's inhumane," said Cindy Smith, who came from Florida to protest, together with her daughter and son. "We are here to free the world of all the treatments that Trump has given to them since he came into office."
"This is a very cruel and inhuman attitude that's dominating the American politics now," Maddy, who took her 18-month-old baby to protest, told Xinhua.
"Children belong to school, belong to playground, not the cages," read one protester's message.
"Families belong together and FREE!" read another.
Organized by "Families Belong Together," the rally in New York began at Foley Square around 10:30 a.m. local time. The protesters marched through across the Brooklyn Bridge before rallying in Cadman Plaza.
"Every day, this administration threatens the very future of our communities. The conditions these children are being subjected to is deplorable and un-Americam," organizers wrote on the Facebook event for the march.
