17 states sue Trump administration over family separations at the border

SEATTLE – Seventeen states, including Washington, New York and California, continued Tuesday President Trump's administration to force authorities to reunite migrants families who have been separated on the border between the United States and Mexico. The states, all headed by Democratic attorneys general, joined Washington, DC, filing the lawsuit in the US District Court in Seattle. This is the first legal challenge by states on practice.

"The administration's practice of separating families is cruel, simple and simple," New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement sent by email. "Every day, it seems that the administration publishes contradictory new policies and relies on new conflicting justifications, but we can not forget: the lives of real people is at stake."

Immigration authorities have separated about 2,300 children from their parents in recent weeks, causing outrage recordings crying children emerged. Many parents are detained thousands of miles away from their children, they have not been able to see and have rarely spoken for a month or more.

After falsely blaming Democrats for separations and insisting that only Congress could solve the problem, last week the president issued a decree aimed at end the practice as part of its "zero tolerance" policy, which prosecutes adults who come illegally to the United States.

But states say his order is riddled with warnings and fails to reunite parents and children who have already been torn apart. They accuse the administration of denying parents and children due process; to deny immigrants, many of whom are fleeing gang violence in Central America, their right to seek asylum; and be arbitrary in the application of the policy.

An American judge in San Diego is already considering issuing a national injunction requested by the American Civil Liberties Union that would order the administration to reunite separated children with their parents.

A Seattle-based immigrant rights group on Monday filed a lawsuit on behalf of detained asylum seekers in Washington State who were separated from their children.

States that have commenced an action are Massachusetts, California, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, the United States. Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Virginia.

Still on Tuesday, dozens of protesters came to a Los Angeles hotel where Attorney General Jeff Sessions arrived to address the Conservative Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. They gathered in front of the Millennium Biltmore hotel in the city center and chanted, "Free our children, jails! and "No justice, no peace!"

CBS Los Angeles reports that about two dozen clergy have been arrested after linking the guns and ignored a police order to disperse. Reverend Felicia Parazaider said street clergy opposed sessions quoting verses from the Bible while defending its border policies.

"I am an interdenominational minister and I do not pretend to know everything about every part of the scriptures, but the message of Jesus was about love, and all about the inclusion and the welcoming of the neighbor," said Mr Parazaider.

Police gave a five-minute warning in advance of the arrests, with a sergeant announcing on a loudspeaker that the protest was an illegal assembly, reported CBS Los Angeles. At that time, most of the hundreds of protesters had moved to the sidewalk to watch, but the clergy remained on Spring Street, joining the arms and sitting down.