AUSTIN, TX — Thousands of people gathered at the Capitol grounds on Saturday to protest the Trump administration's so-called "zero tolerance" immigration policy — chiefly its hallmark tactic of separating children from their immigrant parents for detention elsewhere as a deterrent for future immigration.

Before the event, some 7,000 people confirmed they would be in attendance per the Facebook event page. Organizers of the rally — one of more than 750 that took place the same day across the country — estimated 10,000 people ended up going to the rally. The fountainhead rally took place at Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. with hundreds more sister rallies throughout the U.S., including the Austin gathering that occurred from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday. The massive attendance at the Austin rally was made more impressive given the sweltering heat, with the high temperature hovering just under 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite those conditions, the spirited crowd — some standing near in front of the south Capitol steps where some two dozen speakers addressed the crowd while others sat on the lawn of the state grounds, listening from farther away under the shade of trees for protection from the sun. Watering stations were set up for the masses, as volunteers distributed free bottled waters to those gathered in need of hydration.

Since Trump's zero tolerance stance was implemented more than 2,300 children have been taken from their parents for separate detention in a move that has been widely condemned given its antithetical nature to the nation's ideals. Succumbing to massive outcry, Trump has since signed an executive order reversing his own policy, toward ending family separation. Despite the reversal, many children are now in limbo — desperately needing legal assistance to gain their freedom from detention camps while traumatized in being separated from parents after a long and perilous journey from southern points of origin to reach the U.S. Some children have been literally torn from their mothers' clutches since the crackdown began, including infants separated from nursing mothers.

"There are still hundreds of families with no access to attorneys who have no idea when they'll see their children," Zenén Jaimes Pérez with the Texas Civil Rights Project said at Saturday's rally. "When the cameras go away, politicians leave and start talking about something else. We need you with us."

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, an Austin immigration attorney, suggested the current political climate is a rebuke of decades of American practice of welcoming refugees into the fold.



"For almost 70 years, our country has recognized its obligation to protect victims of persecution," Lincoln-Goldfinch said. "We require that asylum seekers be inside our border of our nation to apply for protection. They're not lawbreakers or gang members or violent criminals. They are refugees. They are fleeing violence and gangs."

The attorney noted that even after Trump's reversal and a subsequent court order to reunite families, thousands of children remain detained, apart from their parents. She relayed news of a bond rejection for one of her clients despite her previously establishing grounds for "credible fear" — a concept in US. asylum law whereby a person demonstrates he or she has a credible fear of returning to their home country. Establishing that status traditionally has made such refugees not subject to deportation until the person's asylum case has been processed.