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NEW YORK (FOX 5 NY) - More than 150 Close the Camps Now protests took place around the country on Tuesday.
In New York, about 600 people from near and far gathered outside of Middle Collegiate Church to demand that the federal government close its immigration detention centers, which the protesters say are cruel and inhumane.
"I have been to the border, I have seen them take elementary school children in handcuffs," said Jess Morales Rocketto, the executive director of Families Belong Together & Domestic Workers Alliance. "I have seen them put them in a bus in cages."
Protesters held a moment of silence as they wrapped themselves in foil, just like the foil blankets given to migrants at the centers.
A day earlier, a Democratic delegation visited immigration and detention centers in Texas. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, painted a horrific picture of the conditions migrants are living in.
"What is happening right now is a repeat of our bloody and sad history in this country," Rocketto said. "What is happening right now has happened before but the difference between then and before is us."
Last week, Congress passed a bipartisan $4.6 billion bill to address the current conditions at the border.
Now, advocacy groups are demanding Congress cut funding to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.