The San Luis Obispo County group that organized the Women’s March in January is preparing for a series of protests to speak out against what they call a "broken" immigration system in the United States.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday, ending the practice of breaking up families at the border.
While the group’s original prompt for the protests, which was the separation of migrant families, is now being addressed, the organization said more must be done to help families in immediate need.
Dawn Addis, who led the SLO Women’s March, said the President’s new directive does not undo the damage and opens the door for children to be locked up alongside their parents.
"What has happened has been needlessly cruel," said Addis. "We have a number of children separated from their parents. We don’t know when they will be reunited."
Months after leading hundreds through the streets of SLO county for gender equality, Addis plans to walk Thursday with residents who demand changes to U.S. immigration laws.
"Immigration has been a long standing focus for Women’s March SLO and Women’s March in general," said Addis. "In our unity principles, we talk about migration being a human right and the decriminalization of people looking for a better life through migration."
President Trump has called his zero tolerance policy on illegal immigration "strong" and warned “If you’re really, really pathetically weak, the country is going to be overrun with millions of people."
The President then added that, by being strong, he appears heartless, a dilemma he’s working to iron out.
According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the Golden State had an estimated 2 million undocumented immigrants in 2014.
The institute reports that nearly a quarter of the nation’s undocumented immigrants reside in California.
Over the next three days, pop up protests will take place in towns across SLO County.
"We want the federal gov to hear our voice and really what we want is fair and just policy that creates an immigration system that allows people to come here that need to come here through asylum, who are escaping violence in their home countries," said Addis.
