Local man carries daily protest of Trump immigration policy in Palm Springs

Sitting at a park bench in a corner of Ruth Hardy Park in Palm Springs is a man and his sign, “Children in Cages is Wrong Period”.

“Ugh, what are they doing all day long?” Dave Lucene, the protestor said. “Stuck with a bunch of other kids they don’t even know, and the whole thing is just completely wrong.”

He has been protesting the family separation policy at the border since Tuesday, by sitting at the same park bench with a different sign criticizing the Trump Administration. A quiet protest at the park corner. He’s usually alone.

“People walk by and people jog by and almost every person that goes by gives me a thumbs up,” he said.

On Friday- he had a little more company, including one bystander who stopped by to chat with him.

“I’m glad that somebody’s, we get to do that here in America. We get to protest,” Mark Jobe of Palm Springs, said.

Lucene says he was intimidated at first.

“I just thought people are going to think I’m a crazy man sitting here with a sign,” he said. “What is he doing and I thought they would boo me or I don’t know.”

Thanks to positive reception he’s says he’s received, Lucene said he is now comfortable, and despite the end to the family separation policy his protests will continue.

“I’m going to keep doing this until all of those two or three thousand children are back with their parents and they’re all happy in homes or something,” he said.

A protest he hopes will continue to grow.