At a "Families Belong Together" rally billed as nonpartisan, a few dozen people listened to speakers decry the policies that have led to a family separation crisis at the United States-Mexico border.
As backdrop, a line of people held up signs with letters spelling out "WE CARE WHY DON'T YOU?" Other signs read, "If you're not outraged you're not paying attention" and "Families belong together."
A single counterprotester watched from a distance, displaying his own signs reading, "Vote America and Secure Borders First" and "'American' Families First."
Organizer Amber Keith-Smith told the crowd that though President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order ending routine family separation moving forward, Americans cannot rest until those children taken from their families are reunited with them. Trump's zero-tolerance immigration policy must end, she said.
Pastor David Watkins of Twin City Church of Christ said that treating children humanely is a moral issue, not a partisan issue, and that the U.S. should be more welcoming.
"Everybody should have a fair and moral right to a path to citizenship in this country if they so desire it. We should not be in the business of trying to stop people from coming to our country," he said.
Watkins said the criminalization of asylum seekers feeds into "the prison-industrial complex" and serves the interests of a wealthy elite.
"What this is about is creating a system that makes the rich people even more richer, and we need to stand up and tell our congressman and tell the rest of the world that we will not stand for mistreating people just because the rich want to get richer," he said.
Separating families was used as a tactic against Jews during the Holocaust, as well as Native Americans and African-American slaves in American history, Watkins said.
"When you begin to separate children from undocumented people seeking asylum when they come into this country, we already have a proven history that this method will never work. And if we allow this method to stand, we're going to have continuous years of oppression against another group of people as it has always been with people in times past," he said.
Counterprotester Allen Fleming said he would like to see Americans take care of our own families and children first, before those who have traveled here from other nations "two or three countries away," and he was critical of what he called Democrats' politicization of the immigration issue.
No one spoke when Keith-Smith invited anyone present to share how the immigration policy has affected them personally.
The rally took place outside the Texarkana office of U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Heath.
