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Child of Undocumented Immigrants Brings Crowd to Tears at D.C. Rally

“I don’t understand why they are being so mean to us children. Why do they hurt us like this?”

The 12-year-old daughter of two undocumented immigrants took the stage at the Families Belong Together march in Washington, D.C., on Saturday and brought demonstrators to tears with an emotional speech condemning President Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policies. The girl, named only as Leah, fought back tears for most of her five-minute speech detailing what it’s like to be an immigrant child in Trump’s America. “I don’t understand why they are being so mean to us children. Don’t they know how much we love our families? Why do they hurt us like this?” she said, condemning the hundreds of family separations that left children “in cages” and “missing their parents.” “I live with the constant fear of losing my mom to deportation. I don’t want to live with this fear. It’s scary. I can’t sleep, I can’t study, I am stressed,” she said. The emotionally charged event also featured several big-name stars, including Alicia Keys, America Ferrera, and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who sang a lullaby to migrant children whose “parents right now can’t sing lullabies” to them.