America's immigration crisis

More than one thousand female activists marched through Washington, D.C., Thursday and flooded a Capitol Hill Senate building to protest the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" policy.

US Capitol Police arrested about 100 people at the protest in the Senate building so far.

The activists sat on the floor of the Senate building with Mylar blankets to demand the end demand Congress end the policies that criminalize undocumented immigrants and separates their children from them.

In an executive order last week, President Donald Trump said his administration was seeking more authority to detain families together until the end of their immigration proceedings. 

The order instructs federal agencies -- notably the Department of Defense -- to prepare facilities to house the potentially thousands of families who will be detained.

Capitol police have threatened to arrest a crowd of women who had gathered on Capitol Hill to protest President Trump's immigration policy.

The incident began when the protesters, who earlier attended a march and rally organized by the Women's March, flooded a Senate office building while chanting, "We care" -- a reference to first lady Melania Trump's "I really don't care. Do U?" jacket that she wore before and after visiting the young children being held near the southern border last week.

Some of the women were also wearing the the foil-style thermal blankets that detained immigrants were seen wearing in government footage earlier this month.

As the women were being escorted away by police, Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat, approached them and appeared to introduce herself.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty, who is reporting from the protest, said she was also asked to leave.

Protesters have rallied in Brownsville, Texas, near the US border to demand an end to family separations.

They've come from across Texas: Buses brought protesters into the border town from Dallas, Houston and other cities.

CNN's Miguel Marquez reports:

Watch more:

A group of women marching against family separations in Washington, DC, are protesting with song.

Kai Newkirk, activist and co-founder of Democracy Spring, captured the song on video.

Here's are the lyrics:

Demonstrators have gathered near the border in Brownsville, Texas, to rally against President Trump's immigration policies.

Mia Gibson, 6, attended with her mother, Alejandra Caballero, and carried a hand-drawn poster that read, “Kids need their parents.”

Mia said she and her mother came to the protest “to help kids."

Caballero said her daughter doesn’t fully understand what is going on — but she added that Mia feels sad for the kids that have been separated from their parents. 

Protesters demanding an end of immigrant family separations gathered outside of the Department of Justice in Washington DC on Thursday with one question:

The Trump administration has more than 2,000 children it separated from their parents in its custody.

The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) has launched the “National Families Together Hotline” to locate families that have been separated upon entry into the United States.

The "National Families Together Hotline" will be staffed by volunteers from 10 a.m. ET - 6 p.m. ET, but callers will be able to call and leave voicemails 24 hours a day.

“Reuniting the families separated by the current administration's “Zero Tolerance Policy” has become essentially a game of hide and seek," said Jonathan Ryan, Executive Director at RAICES. "We have had to resort to becoming private investigators to find these families and reunite them while ensuring they have access to pro-bono legal representation."

The group released the following poster in both English and Spanish:

Jodi Goodwin, a long-time immigration attorney whose team represents 200 immigrant detainees, says none of their clients have been reunited with their children. 

Goodwin's team represents immigrants housed at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas.

She added that since last week, when President Trump signed an executive order stopping family separations, phone calls have been more accessible for parents to make in search for their kids. 

The challenge: Goodwin says the challenge for these parents is knowing exactly where their kids are. Older children may have a general sense of the states they are in, but they don’t know specifics. 

First Lady Melania Trump has arrived in Arizona for her second trip on the border situation.

Trump landed at Davis Monthan AFB at 9:50am, about two hours north of the us border. She will have a briefing round table with US Marshals, border patrol agents, ICE agents and a few local ranchers.

The goal is for the First Lady to “learn and educate herself” about issues at the border, first hand, from those on the frontlines, says Trump's communications director Stephanie Grisham.

After round table she will get a tour of the intake center, a short term holding facility, a place where families are being separated. 

She will have a private briefing at an intelligence operation center at the facility, with no press present.

 The overall goal of the Arizona visit, says Grisham, is for Trump to “encourage family reunification,” as well as urge Congress “to fix our broken immigration system”

“She recognizes it’s a complex issue," Grisham added. “She wants to make sure the kids are well taken care of.”