Rabbi Josh Whinston, a Reform Jewish leader from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who helped organize the protest, said he thinks the government’s strategy at Tornillo amounts to the “imprisonment of children.”

Whinston said he sees very clear similarities between the migrant children at Tornillo and the Israelites in the Bible who fled an Egyptian pharaoh’s rule in search of a better life.

“The folks who are crossing our borders, they are fleeing violence, they are fleeing persecution, they are fleeing for their lives. Maybe in some cases, it’s an issue of economic reasons, but that’s not the case for most people anymore,” Whinston said. “It’s our responsibility as religious people, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, to do what we can to help these asylum-seekers, rather than treating them as criminals.”