Here's What People In Mexico Wish Americans Understood About The Border Separations

"Honestly, if a person doesn't understand that what's going on is wrong, I think there's something wrong with them."

Several hundred people in Mexico City gathered outside of the US Embassy last week to protest the Trump administration's policy of separating children from their parents along the US–Mexico border.

International outrage spread after the New York Daily News featured a photo of a 2-year-old Honduran asylum-seeker, crying as her mother is searched and detained at the Texas border. It's estimated that 2,300 children have been separated from their parents without any clear plan to reunite them. As of Friday, about 500 children have been reunited with their families.

BuzzFeed News asked protesters what they wish Americans understood about how it feels watching all of this play out on the other side of the border.

Alaen, 30

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"Americans don't see us as an equal people. They don't think we deserve the same rights and the same treatment and the same things that they have. The white privilege is very strong in America, so I think this is a problem of race, it's a social problem, and I don't think this is going to end so soon."

Mariana, 19

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"I think that in the United States, they don't understand that we're humans and we are — here in Mexico — we are really angry. Because we think that child — and humans — they don't deserve to be apart from their families. It's something unacceptable."

Silvana, 20

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"For people who are willing to cross, they have to cross all of Mexico. You see these people. I have seen people at red lights, asking for money. These are Latin American people. They are human beings. I think the misconception is that this is not humane for anyone. I know these are [Trump's] policies and they have thought about this, but it's not the right way. You are not treating these kids with dignity."

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

Miriam, 26

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"It's a hard feeling because we feel fragile, without any way to fight this, except to protest for a real change and show authorities that we're not happy on this current situation."

Sophia, 27

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"I just want to say that we're the same, we don't have any differences. I have a brother and he lives in America and I don't know why they're trying to divide people."

[Her belly reads, "No human being is illegal."]

Bernardo, 32

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"Honestly, if a person doesn't understand that what's going on is wrong, I think there's something wrong with them. Like they need to go back inside of themselves and find love for themselves and for everyone. This is totally against love for anyone."

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

Sandra, 37

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"I cannot generalize. I think there are some Americans that are fighting — they are not agreeing with this — but I am asking to the people who aren't: Please read the news, please see the children, the pictures of the children crying, because they don't have their parents with them. It's very sad. If you see those pictures it's impossible not to cry. Please, please feel something. Have a heart. Have a soul. Have something. America — the USA — is the country of freedom, but it's not true at this moment."

Albert, 44

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"This is beyond nationalities. This is a human being problem. It doesn't matter if we're Americans, Mexicans, Canadians, or Guatemalans, or whatever. I think it's very stupid that in the case of goods, we can have a free market, but in the case of people, it's the other way around. It's a very restrictive thing. It's going back to the way it was 20 or 30 years ago. And I think what we have to push for is like Europe, where you only have one border for all of Europe. We should have the same for all of America."

John, 59

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"I feel that I have a responsibility to take an advantage of my double nationality and speak out in both languages and urge my friends, acquaintances, and like-thinking people in the United States to take very serious, very drastic action to, number one, remove Trump from office; number two, remove the whole apparatus that would lead to Pence, or someone like him replacing him; number three, abolish capitalism; number four, let us into the United States without having to stand in line."

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

Alans, 20

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"I would say it doesn't matter if you're American or you're Mexican, we're all humans, and — OK, there are people who are racist or assholes — but not the kids."

Mayte, 22

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"We're all humans, that's all."

Gabriel, 27

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed

"The whole world is watching."

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

Conrado, 40

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"This is the first time in my life I've done something like this. We painted these yesterday. We are not activists. We're a family touched by someone that we saw on television, some American family — a mother — screaming to the camera, asking for them to release the children. That moved us. We don't do this."

Berenice, 43

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"I think sitting on my couch I'm doing nothing so I came here for those people who now don't have a voice and if I can be their voice, I'm going to be. I'm going to do something."

Meida, 39

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"We're horrified and it's outrageous. I feel like the whole world knows that what they're doing is not right except for — I don't want to say Americans because I don't think it would be fair — a very small number of Americans. There are laws, there are international laws, there are international institutions that have been put in place so that these kinds of things don't happen.

"We can't be silent and we can't pretend it's not happening so we have to raise our voice. Because it's Mexicans, it's the Mexican border, or because it's Central Americans, doesn't mean that we care more about it. We would do this about anybody that's being mistreated."

Brenda, 40

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"I'm a mother and I just can't imagine my children going through what the over 2,000 children are going through on the border."

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

Rosa Maria, 70

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News

"I think it's a very sensitive matter to see all these kids taken away to nowhere. Nobody knows. That's why I consider it forced disappearance, not separation of families only. The problem is, where are they? I have children, I'm going to be a grandmother, and I just can't imagine the feeling of a family when their kids are taken away from them."