Don’t mess with memaws.
A caravan of self-described “grannies” met in Manhattan on Tuesday to embark on a six-day, 2,000-mile tour to the U.S.-Mexico border to protest family separations, WCBS Newsradio reports.
“Aging may have slowed me down, but it hasn’t shut me up,” Claire Nelson, a member of the group, told Salon. “That’s true for a lot of us.”
The crew of seniors, called “Grannies Respond,” plans to make a total of seven stops during its road trip, including Reading, Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh; Louisville, Kentucky; Montgomery, Alabama; New Orleans; and Houston, CBS News reports.
The group’s final stop will be in McAllen, Texas, on Monday, where it says it will hold a 24-hour demonstration.
The fed-up nanas also plan to hold rallies and vigils at each city along the way, and keep a video diary of members’ personal experiences on its website.
And if a “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” segment that featured them is any indication, those vlog entries will be pretty interesting.
Roya Salehi, an organizer and grandmammy, told CBS that “Grannies Respond” started on Facebook in May, about a month after Attorney General Jeff Sessions implemented a zero tolerance border policy that resulted in thousands of migrant children being separated from their families.
President Donald Trump has since signed an executive order to stop his own administration’s separation policy and reunite the families that were torn apart. Many families are not being reunified, however, unless the parent agrees to deportation or a family member within the country takes the child into their care. There are still hundreds of kids who have not been reunited with their parents.
“It’s like a horror show. I really can’t believe in the name of our government these things are happening,” group member Marjorie Horowitz told New York City news channel PIX11.
The gray-haired activists have since expanded their group from Facebook to a grassroots movement with caravans forming in multiple states including Georgia, Texas, Wisconsin, Oregon and Florida.
“We’re not your old-fashioned ‘granny’ model,” Kathleen Brown, a member of the group and a grandmother of 12, told CBS. “I think that in the beginning, the idea of the grannies was a chuckle. But we’re nothing to chuckle at.”