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Following a congressional tour of an ICE detention facility in Dilley, where 5-year-old Liam Ramos and dozens of other children are kept, a protest was held at San Antonio City Hall late Wednesday.
Federal and state lawmakers and others called for the release of Ramos and the nearly four-thousand children held in detention by ICE this past year.
Local Democratic Congressman Greg Casar was among the speakers.
"Whatever your politics, I ask you to stop for a moment and imagine that's your child. Your little boy or little girl. That should break the hearts of every American."
Democratic San Antonio Congressman Joaquin Castro described the children he saw on the tour, including an Egyptian girl who hugged his leg and tried to speak to him in her native language.
"The kids didn't seem to understand. I mean some of them seemed despondent. Some of them were crying," he said.
Immigration detention attorney Eric Lee of Detroit represents a family of six, including an 18-year-old girl who was separated from them after she spoke out against ICE.
"When you hear hundreds of children shouting let us go, it certainly raises alarm bells," he said.
Lee also read aloud from a letter written by the girl whose family has been in detention for nine months. In the letter, she sought justice for her family and still expressed belief in the U.S. justice system.
Lee also held up art drawn by the children in the family, which showed stick people with tears and frowns standing behind a wire fence.
The Congressman and protestors called for ICE to be abolished or defunded, and for its head, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, to be impeached.
