KC event will join nationwide protests against separation of families at the border

Some Kansas Citians plan to rally Saturday to protest the separation of migrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The event, scheduled for noon at Penn Valley Park, will be one of hundreds nationwide in an effort by the organization Families Belong Together to send a message to the government.

"We protest the irreversible trauma that has already been perpetrated on these children and their parents for the crime of seeking a better life," the organization's website states.

The rally will include speeches from Socorro Herrera, a professor in the College of Education at Kansas State University, and the Rev. Randy Fikki, the spiritual leader at Unity Southeast in Kansas City. Unity Southeast also sponsored its own rally on June 20.

Cassandra Woolworth, a member of the national organization MoveOn, is helping host and plan the event. The goal, she said, is to protest family separation and raise money for Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation, a Kansas City, Kan., organization. The money raised will support asylum-seeking migrant families affected by detainment and deportation orders.

The nationwide rallies will be occurring despite President Donald Trump's executive order on June 20 that ended the separation of families at the border by instead detaining them together.

"The executive order doesn't cover reconciling the children who are already separated," she said, adding that America should not be closed off, "especially to asylum seekers."

Other rallies in Kansas and Missouri are scheduled in Lawrence, Wichita, Topeka, Columbia, St. Joseph and Springfield.