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Dozens attended a rally in Downtown Dallas on Thursday to protest the Trump administration's policy of splitting up families at the border.
The group demanded parents be reunited with their children and want a facility in South Texas that's housing some of those children to shut down.
FOX 4 got a first look inside the facility in Brownsville called Casa Padre. The center houses an estimated 1,500 children who came into the U.S. alone or were separated from their families at the border as their parents face prosecution for illegal immigration.
Those at the protest said it is not a political issue but a human rights one. Some disagreed with each other on the issue of immigration, but everyone in the crowd agreed that families should not be separated.
In the crowd of voices fighting for illegal immigrant families separated at the border when they are detained was Marcela Evans, an immigration lawyer with the Human Rights Initiative of North Texas.
“The policy of separating the families from their children is incredibly inhumane,” she said.
Evans helps with cases involving children as young as a few months old who were separated from their families as the fight over immigration continues.
“Those kids, what they want is to be with their parents. They don’t necessarily think about what that means from the immigration standpoint,” she said. “What they know is I was with my mom. I was with my dad, and now I’m not.”
Over the last month, they’ve seen a noticeable difference in the children they help.
“Previously, we worked with children who came unaccompanied,” Evans said. “And we’re noticing we’re having an increase of children who have been separated from their families.”
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins addressed the crowd with an offer to house some of the affected children, saying the move would be supported by federal dollars.
“We want to take the politics out of this,” he said. “I realize everybody involved on both sides of this. There’s Democrats and Republicans.”
North Texas charities and non-profits have housed children from border surges in years past when detention facilities became overcrowded.
Jenkins says he recently reached out to the Office of Refugee Resettlement letting them know Dallas County will open its doors to children needing shelter.
“This is really about children who are like your children and my children who are scared and who are in a bad situation,” he said. “And we can make it better.”
Jenkins says he has not heard back yet from the refugee resettlement office. It’s unknown how many children Dallas County would give shelter to.