Kamala Harris visits mothers at detention facility.

CHRIS STONE

U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris described her visit to a detention facility in San Diego.

CALIFORNIA Senator Kamala Harris, whose mother was an immigrant from India, visited immigrant mothers at the Otay Mesa Immigration and Detention Facility near San Diego today (June 23).

The women she spoke were from Honduras and El Salvador, migrant mothers who have been separated from their children.

After her visit, she spoke at a rally kicking off a weekend of protests against the Donald Trump zero-tolerance policy that has been ripping children away from their parents and detraining them in facilities across the country.

“I’m heartbroken,” she said. “The government should be in the business of keeping families together — not tearing them apart,” she told hundreds in an 8-minute talk.

The women were in "complete and utter despairt," said Harris. They told her about difficult access to phone calls and their meager working wages of $1 per day in some instances. Harris explained that phone calls for the detained mothers cost 85 cents per minute.

"This is a prison," said Harris.

Harris told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Trump's executive order signed Thursday to stop separating families does not end the policy, costs taxpayers millions and results in indefinite detentions.

While the Trump administration reported that at least 500 families have been reunified, Harris argues that there is still no clear path outlined for reuniting the rest of the separated families.

“Why do they think these parents should be any different that any one of us?” Harris said. “Nothing can comfort our children more at the end of their day than knowing they can speak with their parents.”

She ended her remarks to the several hundred demonstrators outside the detention facility  by saying: “Guys, here’s the bottom line as far as I’m concerned: This fight for us is about love of country. … This is about patriotism. … fighting for the ideals of our country.

“Years from now, our children, our grandchildren are going to ask us: Where were you at this moment?”
_______________________________________________________________________________

TGIF Feature: Do you care? Step up! Speak out! Fight back!

TIME Photo-Illustration. Photographs by Getty Images

ARE YOU UPSET over Donald Trump's zero-tolerance policy that separated 2,300 kids from their parents who took their families across the southern border?

Even though he signed an executive order that supposedly stop the forced separations, the poliy is still in place. As federal agencies interpret it, it means that families will stay together in detention.

The Department of Justice attorneys are trying to overturn the Flores v. DOJ decision that limited children in detention for only 20 days. That court class action case allowed the parents to be released along withi the children.

Trump wants to keep the entire family together indefinitely until their case is adjudicated by an immigration court.

Melania Trump made a visit to one of the detention
 centers housing some of teh children taken from
their parents. Unfortunately, she wore this
coast, erasing any good will her visit may have
generated for the White House.

The question remains: After 20 days, will the children be taken away from the parents again?

Frustrated? Angry? Feeling helpless? Want to lash out?

There is hope. You are not alone. There are actions you can take.

Advocate: Call your member of Congress to support families staying together. 

• White House public comment line: 202-456-1111 
• Department of Justice public comment line: 202-353-1555 
• U.S. Senate Switchboard: 202-224-3121 

Giving: Financial support.

We recommend giving to the organizations below. These are nonprofits that our foundation has researched and vetted, including many that we have supported with our own grantmaking dollars.

Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) is a nonprofit organization that provides free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant children, families and refugees in Central and South Texas. They have been raising funds to get parents out of detention so that they can be reunited with their children.

Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) is a national organization that engages in policy advocacy. With offices in ten cities, including San Francisco and Washington D.C., KIND trains pro bono lawyers to represent unaccompanied immigrant children in removal proceedings.

ACLU Foundation is a national organization that has defended the civil rights of individuals for nearly a century. Its Immigrant Rights Project is a unit within the ACLU that defends the rights of immigrants and is currently litigating family separation issues.

Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS)* is a national organization that protects the fundamental human rights of refugee women, children, LGBT individuals, and others who flee persecution in their home countries. CGRS is taking the lead in responding to the administration’s attempts to dismantle asylum protections for victims of domestic violence.

Engage: Show your support on social media (#FamiliesBelongTogether #KeepFamiliesTogether).

Join: Since the 2016 election, we've learned that it's that marches, protests and rallies can be effective. Find a local Families Belong Together event here.

MoveOn, Women's March, Pantsuit Nation, National Domestic Workers Alliance and a number of other groups are also hosting a Families Belong Together protest on June 30 between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. at Lafayette Square in Washington D.C. The organizers are encouraging a day of nationwide protests to send the message to Donald Trump that "cruelly separating children from their families" won't be allowed to continue.

The official Facebook event can be found here; to find a local June 30 protest location, click here. 

______________________________________________________________________________