'The only choice is to survive': Charleston attorney talks Trump immigration policy at protest

Nina Cano teared up at a rally on Wednesday when she described the types of situations that force mothers and children to seek asylum in the United States: abusive fathers, drug cartels, gangs that require extortion fees from parents to keep their children alive.

Cano knows these stories because the immigration attorney has heard them from the mothers themselves.

"People believe these people had a choice to cross into this country," Cano said. "The only choice is to survive with your children. That's why these women are here. That's why these kids are here."

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A crowd of a few dozen protesters gathered at the U.S. Customhouse on East Bay Street in the midst of a migrant child crisis unfolding at the United States-Mexico border.

Over six weeks in April and May, nearly 2,000 children were separated from their parents under the zero-tolerance policy announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which refers all cases of illegal entry for criminal prosecution.

The Lutheran Services Carolinas, a Christian relief organization authorized by the federal government to provide transitional care, told The Post and Courier on Tuesday that it had resettled five of these children during the last month. The children, ages 7 to 11, are living with foster families in South Carolina.

On Wednesday, the Charleston group waved signs that included biblical messages, "Give me your tired, your poor. We'll put them in cages." Young children waved signs, too, "Families belong together."

Ana Karen Castellanos asked her Christian and Republican friends who say they care about family values to support measures that would keep families together. She led the crowd in a chant: "This is a family issue."

Mose Miller, 13, protested alongside his older brother and his mother. He said he cannot imagine what his peers at the border are going through.

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"That would tear me apart," he said.

Can, who works in Charleston, said she hoped to educate the crowd on what is "illegal" and what's not. It is legal, for example, for asylum seekers to cross the border and into another country. These people are entitled, she added, to a U.S. asylum process. Asylum court can be a sometimes months-long verification process.

Because the system is so overburdened, families and unaccompanied children are overpopulating the border.

One of Cano's clients is a Charleston resident who has obtained legal citizenship. The woman has been trying to help her 15-year-old son escape his abusive father in Mexico.

Her son was found Tuesday by a border patrol agent in Arizona. He was deported to Mexico and was not granted an asylum request.

The American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina called on Gov. Henry McMaster on Wednesday to remove the state's members of the National Guard from the U.S.-Mexico border. Governors in other Republican states, such as Maryland and Massachusetts, have already done so, ACLU of S.C. Executive Director Shaundra Scott said.

"Children, crying for their moms and dads, are being torn from their parents' arms," she said. "These are not actions that are reflective of what South Carolina nor the United States of America represent."

According to the rally's Facebook event, a second rally at the Customhouse has been scheduled at 10:30 a.m.June 30.