Columbia Teen Inspires Pajama Protest About Immigration Policies

WASHINGTON, DC — A high school student from Columbia helped organize a protest that took place over the weekend on the National Mall. Alex Kohn told news agency Ruptly that he was concerned about the plight of families separated at the U.S. border with Mexico and was inspired to take action.

"Something needed to be done," Kohn told Ruptly. "We do care about these children, and almost everybody in this country does care about these children."

He was referencing the immigrant children being held in detention facilities around the country after trying to cross the border.

More than 11,500 immigrant children were apprehended at the U.S. border in May, Buzzfeed reported.

Initially, Kohn hung pajamas at the Unitarian Universalist in the 7200 block of Cradlerock Way in Columbia. The junior at Oakland Mills High School was delivering a talk about immigration and used pajamas to represent children caught in the middle of the illegal immigration debate. That was in October, according to The Baltimore Sun, which reported the congregation since teamed up with Indivisible HoCo to sponsor the protest in D.C.

In particular, the weekend protest called attention to the more than 1,000 immigrant children at a detention facility in Homestead, Florida. The largest detention facility for immigrant children in the United States, it is run by a private company and has been likened to a prison.

Then the idea grew. The group Indivisible HoCo united to hang 1,000 pajamas on the National Mall on Sunday in Washington, D.C. It coincided with International Children's Day on June 9. The local group Indivisible HoCo is part of the national Indivisible campaign, which is a group opposed to the policies of President Donald Trump, and whose supporters took pictures of pajamas hanging on clotheslines around the country as well.

There is a petition that calls for the closure of the Homestead detention center, an effort which the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is sponsoring.

Said Kohn: "This is unacceptable and cannot continue."