WHO: UNITE HERE International President D. Taylor and General Vice President Maria Elena Durazo, AFSCME International Secretary-Treasurer Elissa McBride, UFCW Secretary-Treasurer Esther Lopez, IUPAT General President Ken Rigmaiden, Philadelphia AFL-CIO; over 5,000 private sector, public sector, and trades union members from across the East Coast

WHEN: Wednesday, Aug 15, 2018, 4:00pm

WHERE: Penn’s Landing, 101 South Columbus Blvd., Philadelphia PA 19106

NOTE: International Union principals and rank-and-file union workers from all unions are available for interview by phone in advance of the action, or day of.

WHY: On August 15, the American labor movement will mobilize across political perspectives and industries to unite together for the largest labor-led demonstration ever on the Trump administration’s policy of family separation. The action is remarkable in the alliance it creates between traditionally separate worker industries, as well as in the significant size of the confirmed turnout and the number and caliber of international labor union leaders who will be participating. The mobilization will deliver a call to reunite families separated at the border, end family detention, reunify separated families, and free the children.

Under the Trump administration, the Philadelphia ICE field office has rejected nearly 100% of requests by asylum seekers to be freed from indefinite detention as their cases pend, which combined with the unique swing role that the state will play in the 2018 midterm elections was the catalyst for national labor groups converging in the city.

As national and local labor unites across barriers on August 15 to demand family reunification for immigrants, a second kind of family separation crisis for families on Temporary Protected Status and DACA looms on the horizon. In the coming months, 273,000 American children are at risk of losing their parents to TPS deportation without immediate congressional action.

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