Immigration ‘Play Date’ Disrupts US Rep. McSally’s Tucson Office

TUCSON, AZ — A group of Arizona children didn’t exactly storm U.S. Rep.Martha McSally’s Tucson office Wednesday, but neither were they there for a field trip to help them learn how government works. Rather, they were there to send a message to McSally that government isn’t working correctly when immigrant families and their children are separated.

McSally, who is running for the Senate, recently shifted her support from immigration-reform bills providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented “dreamers” to a hard-line position that would sharply reduce legal immigration.

The children — or rather their parents and others who organized the “play datee” — think the 2nd District congresswoman was right before the pivot, which some Democrats and conservative Republicans suggest was a political maneuver to bolster her chances in the Aug. 28 Senate primary.

The children brought art supplies and toys to McSally’s office, and even sang some songs, but McSally missed the show because was working from her Washington, D.C., office. (Get Tucson Patch’s real-time news alerts and free morning newsletters. Like us on Facebook. Also, download the free Patch iPhone app or free Patch Android app.)

Television station KGUN said a staff member asked the young protesters and their parents to leave, but didn’t forcibly eject them. Tucson police were there for a while, but then left, the report said. The children and their parents left McSally’s office around 11 a.m., about an hour after they had arrived.

McSally’s office shared a picture of a table they said the demonstrators damaged, and Chief of Staff Justin Roth said they interfered with staffers’ ability to service constituents. In a statement, Roth said:

“It is most unfortunate that this group, organized by radical activists, broke into our office today to disrupt the workplace and prevent us from serving constituents ... The intent of this unruly intrusion is made clear by the fact the group purposely chose a date when the Congresswoman was fulfilling her duties in Washington, D.C. so they could create a scene, and nothing else. During the protest, the participants destroyed property and prevented staff from providing services to individuals who came in to deal with personal casework issues. Events like these distract from the many issues our country faces and makes it harder for our community to come together to address them.”

The Rev. Alison Harrington of the Southside Presbyterian Church, the organizer of the protest, told KGUN that she doesn’t “buy into any portion” of the government’s argument that it doesn’t have the means to keep families together.

“These are asylum seekers who have the right under international law to seek asylum,” Harrington told the television station, “and so they could release them to the community.”

Ruthy Ross, one of the parents, told KGUN: “We’re parents. We’re mothers. We’re fathers. We’re just outraged by the fact that families are being separated. We want them to stay together.”

The legislation McSally is now backing is sponsored by Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte. It would reduce legal immigration and authorize new spending for border security, including President Trump’s proposed border wall. And while it would give some temporary legal protections to undocumented immigrants who came to the United States with their parents as children, they fall short of a legal path for citizenship

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images