Issue and Opponent: President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy had separated hundreds of families detained at the US-Mexican border. The children of these migrants found themselves without their parents and loved ones in family detention centers riddled with controversies and human rights violations. The conditions of these detention centers had been “horrific”. In efforts to call attention to the inhumane conditions these migrants and their children were being subjected to, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) in Texas launched its #NoKidsInCages campaign. The movement advocated for the immediate end of family separation at the border and called for the passing of the Keep Families Together Bill (HR541) introduced in the House in 2019.
Dilemma Action: In efforts to bring awareness to the conditions of these detention centers and the separation of families at the border, RAICES teamed up with the ad agency Badger & Winters to play nearly two dozen art installations depicting realistic child-sized mannequins in cages throughout New York. The art installations were often chained to street signs and were placed in strategic locations that would attract the attention of the public. For example, some installations were placed outside of media organizations, like in front of Fox News Studios, cultural institutions, and key intersection points, such as the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center. In other installations, speakers played audios of real children detained in these family detention centers crying for their parents. Reports are calling the art installations “haunting” and “disturbing” or even at times “chilling”.
Outcomes: By mid-afternoon, most of the cages had been taken down by police or city employees. NYPD officers had been reportedly caught cutting the chains holding the art installations down or even at times covering the cage completely. When asked as to why the installations were removed, officers had no comment. Though the Trump administration officially ended the family separation policy in 2018, the movement insisted that migrant children continue to be routinely separated from their parents in other ways. The HR541 bill has not yet been passed.