Tens of thousands in the United States protest against "zero tolerance" for immigrants

Tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday in several US cities to demand the government of President Donald Trump to reverse a migration policy that separated children from their parents on the border with Mexico. It resulted in plans for detention camps run by the army.

Outside the White House, protesters showed signs saying "Families must stay together" and shouted "Shame!" while religious leaders and activists have called on the government to be more welcoming to foreigners and reunite separated families.

"The way they treat families, the way they treat immigrants, it's not the United States," said protester Aneice Germain about Trump's firm stance on the issue. 39, immigration, one of the platforms of his election campaign in 2016 and his presidency.

Trump was out of town at a golf club he owned in Bedminster, New Jersey.

The president says that illegal immigration stimulates crime and set up in May a "zero tolerance" policy to prosecute all immigrants detained for illegally entering the country.

This led to the separation of more than 2,000 children from their parents, causing indignation outside and inside the United States this month, even from the from some allies of the Republican President.

In an unusual retraction on a sensitive issue for his conservative base, Trump ordered officials on June 20 to detain families together.

Thousands of protesters in New York crossed the Brooklyn Bridge with posters with slogans like "Make the United States New Humans" and "Immigrants Welcome Here". On the US-Mexico border, protesters partially blocked a bridge linking El Paso, Texas to Ciudad Juarez in Mexico.

In Chicago, thousands of people marched to the local offices of the federal immigration authorities.

The organizers estimated that about 30,000 people gathered in downtown Washington. The peaceful protest appears to have been the biggest protest in favor of immigration in the US capital since at least 2010, when activists lobbied President Barack Obama and Congress to reform US laws on the subject. ;immigration.

Since taking office in 2017, Trump has overseen an increase in arrests of people suspected of being in the country illegally and his government also approves fewer visas for families.

Immigration has been rising in much of the developed world for decades, causing political problems in recent years in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.