'Families Belong Together': Atlanta Immigration Rally Saturday

ATLANTA, GA — Multiple organizations, including the organizers of the well attended women's march last year, have planned a rally on Saturday in Atlanta to protest President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

"Families Belong Together" is backed by more than 50 organizations and invites demonstrators to "sand with immigrants and demand that families remain together."

More than 4,300 people posted that they plan to attend on a Facebook group created for the rally, with another 12,000 listing themselves as interested.

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According to the page, demonstrators will meet at 10 a.m. at the Atlanta Detention Center, 254 Peachtree St. downtown, and march to the Richard Russell Federal Building. Speakers are scheduled at the beginning and end of the march.

Voter registration and other information booths will be set up as well, the page says.

An Atlanta Police spokeswoman said the department is aware of plans for the rally and march, though it is not a permitted event.

The Georgia Alliance For Social Justice organized the Jan. 21, 2017 Women's March in Atlanta, which drew roughly 60,000 people, making it one of the largest political events in Georgia history and one of the largest gatherings in the nation associated with the Women's March In Washington, held one day after President Donald Trump's inauguration.

A year later, the group organized a Power To The Polls rally that again drew tens of thousands of people.

On Facebook, the group posted a long list of organizations co-sponsoring the "Families Belong Together" march. They include the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, CAIR Georgia, the Latino Community Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta, Project South, Georgia Latino Alliance For Human Rights and Tahiri Justice Center.

The group is calling on federal officials to

• Immediately reunite families separated at the U.S. border.
• Permanently end family separation of immigrants, whether they crossed the border illegally or are in the United States seeking asylum.
• End family detention, which they say can result in indefinite imprisonment in immigration cases.
• Reverse the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy for people crossing the border illegally.

"Parents should not be criminally prosecuted for doing what all parents do, which is bring their children to safety," reads the national Families Belong Together page on Facebook. "This horrible nightmare for families will only end when Trump permanently stops his 100% prosecution policy."

Under intense political pressure, Trump on June 20 signed an executive order ending the controversial policy of separating immigrant families at the border.

Then, this week, a federal judge in California ordered a legal halt to the practice of separating migrant children from their parents and for separated families to be reunited.

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego issued the order Tuesday in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. Under the court order, federal officials must stop detaining parents apart from their children, unless the parent is deemed unfit or declines reunification.

Children younger than 5 years old must be reunited with their parents within 14 days under the order, while older children must be reunited with their parents within 30 days. Furthermore, parents must be able to call their children within 10 days, if they are not already in contact with them.

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