While attending a protest in Tornillo, Texas — a city along the U.S.-Mexico border — a group of celebrities came together to voice their outrage over the thousands of migrant children who have been separated from their parents after crossing the Southern U.S. border illegally.
“We came to Tornillo, Texas, to show our solidarity with the families who have been separated, the children who are alone and the parents who are grieving and the undocumented Americans who are losing more than I can fathom,” Lena Dunham wrote alongside a group shot of many famous faces, including Amber Heard, Bella Thorne, Mira Sorvino and Sia.
In the group photo, many of the celebrities are carrying signs protesting the crisis. “This is about humanity,” read one of the signs, while another proclaimed “no one is illegal.”
“Thank you, Tornillo, for showing us a warm border welcome and reminding us that together we rise,” Dunham added.
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Sharing his own photo from the protest, actor Joshua Jackson wrote, “This was 10:00 am in Tornillo, Texas. We were standing outside the detention facility where hundreds of children are being held in tents. It was already near 100 F out there.”
“These are not summer camps. These are not acceptable conditions for children. This is a humanitarian crisis of our own making,” he continued, adding the hashtags “ #stopseparatingfamilies#endfamilydetention.”
Imploring her fans to donate to Voto Latino, a civic organization that helped facilitate the peaceful protest, Sia also announced that she would be matching all donations up to $100,000.
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Westworld actress Evan Rachel Wood also participated in a separate event, the Break Bread Not Families rally, which was held in McAllen, Texas, in front of a detention center.
Since May, Trump’s “zero tolerance policy” has resulted in 2,342 children being removed from their parents who crossed the Southern border and face prosecution for illegal entry.
Amid a massive backlash, Trump signed an executive order reversing the position on Wednesday.
On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security said the U.S. government had reunited 522 migrant children who were separated from adults, saying in a statement outlining the reunification process that the government “knows the location of all children in its custody and is working to reunite them with their families.”
While waiting for the parents to complete their deportation hearings, children will continue to be held in custody. The families will then either be reunited before getting deported, or after the parent is released from detention and applies to be the child’s sponsor.
While Trump’s executive order said the government would maintain a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal entry into the country, a senior U.S. official told The Washington Post on Thursday that Border Patrol agents have been told to stop referring parents with children for prosecution.
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