Hundreds rally in Santa Rosa, demanding Congress close migrant detention centers

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at Santa Rosa’s Old Courthouse Square Tuesday afternoon to protest what they called inhumane conditions at immigration detention centers.

“We are living through a moral crisis, and we demand Congress defund deportation forces and close down the camps,” Nansi Weil told the crowd as cars whizzed by on Third Street and honked in support.

Weil, a 68-year-old semi-retired Santa Rosa textile designer, organized the protest in two days after she heard MoveOn, a national progressive policy advocacy group, was organizing “Close the Camps” protests across the country. When she saw there wasn’t one in Sonoma County, she took the initiative to organize a rally - her first time doing so.

“Can you imagine yourself putting a little baby on a concrete floor and walking away?” Weil said in an interview. “If that doesn’t energize people, what will?”

She estimated about 300 people participated in the demonstration during the course of the afternoon.

The protest comes on the heels of a ProPublica report released Monday revealing a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents. Members of the group joked about migrants’ deaths and posted sexist and xenophobic comments about female politicians, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the report stated. Ocasio-Cortez was among the members of Congress who this week visited an immigration detention facility in Clint, Texas, where she said migrants were told to drink water out of the toilet.

In Santa Rosa, many protesters said they were heartbroken by the graphic image of a Salvadoran father and daughter who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande from Mexico into the United States. The Associated Press released the photograph last week, showing Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, 25, and his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria, face-down and in each other’s embrace.

“Separating children is not American,” read one sign, held by Elaine Lieber, a retiree who drove from Sonoma to Santa Rosa with her husband, Joe, to attend the midday rally.

She said she was compelled to come after reading about the conditions migrants face at detention centers, which she called inhumane.

“We feel like this is the least we can do. Going down there wouldn’t solve anything; we wouldn’t get in,” she said, referring to detention centers along the southern border.

“We feel helpless to do anything. We feel horrible,” Lieber said. “We’re fellow human beings. We’re all of the same planet. We need to help each other.”

Bob Miller, a retired Santa Rosa lawyer, said he was infuriated that migrants seeking asylum - a legal process - were being held in detention centers.

“If it can happen in Germany, it can happen here,” Miller said about the detention centers.

Rallies also were held throughout the Bay Area, including in front of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s offices in San Francisco and Walnut Creek.

They were among roughly 180 happening throughout the country at public spaces and offices of U.S. senators and representatives, according to MoveOn.org.