June 14: Rally — Families Belong Together

Rabbi Joanna Samuels, the Executive Director of Manny Cantor, invites us to join her at a rally Thursday afternoon in Brooklyn to protest the mistreatment of children and families crossing the border to the United States.

As Rabbi Samuels said, “U.S. government agents are forcibly separating children from their immigrant parents, sending the children to foster homes or detention centers while their parents are sent to jail. Often, the parents do not know their children’s whereabouts, or even if they are safe. The children are sent to live with strangers or in prison-like detention centers, unaware of whether they will ever be reunited with the families. This cannot continue.”

There are numerous reports of families being forcibly separated at the border, and of children being placed in prison-like detention centers where they have been abused physically and sexually. The legal context of these separations may be complicated, but the outcomes are clearly wrong, and as Americans we should not allow activity like this to be perpetrated in our name.

If you and your family would like to join the rally, meet at the Manny Cantor Center, 197 East Broadway at 5:00 pm. We will then take the F train together to Brooklyn, where the rally starts at 5:30 pm.