Hundreds brave heat to protest Trump in Las Vegas

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Steve Marcus

Laurie Lytel, center, and other protesters picket outside the Suncoast before President Donald Trump’s address to the Nevada State GOP Convention in Summerlin on Saturday, June 23, 2018.

Sat, Jun 23, 2018 (12:08 p.m.)

Protesters Await President Trump at Suncoast

Laurie Lytel, center, and other protesters picket outside the Suncoast before President Donald Trump's address to the Nevada State GOP Convention in Summerlin on Saturday, June 23, 2018. Launch slideshow »

Triple-digit temperatures didn’t stop hundreds of protesters from turning out today to demonstrate against Donald Trump as the president arrived for an appearance at the Nevada State Republican Convention.

Protesters packed the narrow sidewalk in a line several hundred yards long outside the Suncoast at Rampart Boulevard and Alta Drive.

Trump’s policy of separating families arriving at the U.S. border was a major theme of the protest, with demonstrators carrying signs with such slogans as, “Keep families together” and “Immigrants make America great again.”

Sandy Huggard, a lifelong Las Vegas resident, said the issue prompted her to take part.

“We have to stand for the children,” said Huggard, who carried a sign reading, “History’s eyes on Trump’s brutality.”

Other participants included U.S. Rep. Ruben Kihuen, D-Nev., who said he saw children being detained with their mothers last week during a trip to the border near San Diego.

“These children should be out playing on a playground, kicking the ball around on a soccer field or batting the ball on a baseball field, not being detained in jail cells,” he said. What this president and this administration is doing is not only cruel and inhumane, it’s un-American.”

Kihuen said he had signed onto a bill to end family separation but was dismayed that no Republican members of the House agreed to cosponsor it.

“Today is about sending a message to this administration that what it’s doing is cruel, but also that we want to work together,” he said.

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