Celebrities and immigration activists are launching a “hunger strike” aimed at forcing the Trump Administration to reunite around 2,400 illegal immigrant children with their parents and end a “zero tolerance” immigration policy which mandates that immigration enforcement officials bring criminal charges against undocumented migrants who break American immigration law.
The protest, organized by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights center, kicked off on Saturday in front of a McAllen, Texas, immigrant processing center, and organizers claim they will keep up the fast in front of the facility for 24 days. Several high-profile celebrities, like Alec Baldwin and Martin Sheen, have pledged their support, along with members of the Kennedy family.
But it turns out, the “hunger strike” in McAllen really isn’t much of a hunger strike at all. In fact, you only need to “strike” for 24 hours before the “fast” passes to another celebrity. And you don’t even need to go to McAllen, where it’s more than a 100 degrees and desert conditions, to protest.
It also appears that celebrities may be able to avoid any actual “fasting” altogether by sending a check to the Kennedy family in an amount equivalent to the cost of food they might eat in a 24 hour period — an indulgence of sorts that buys peace and absolution for your leftist soul. And no one’s checking to make sure Alec Baldwin doesn’t accidentally down a cheeseburger while suffering for the sake of the children.
According to Kerry Kennedy, who is organizing the protest, the “hunger strike” is designed to raise money for an organization called “Break Bread Not Families,” a non-profit immigration advocacy group that has the backing of the well-to-do “immigrant” Kennedy family, that was supposed to agitate against Trump’s “family separation” policy, but has since adopted a new objective, as President Donald Trump ended the targeted policy by executive order mere days after it became public.
“We want to find a way for people who can’t go down to the border to actually do something themselves at home that is concrete and creates change, and this is what we’re calling on them to do,” Kerry Kennedy told reporters.
Trump does not appear to have noticed the celebrity protest, however. The “zero tolerance” policy will likely remain intact.