As the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" policy toward immigration continues to rip babies and young children away from their parents at the Mexico-United States border, celebrities are using their platforms to condemn the horrifying practice. 

Director and screenwriter Ava DuVernay shared a big message on social media on June 19 including a photo of herself when she was a young child. She juxtaposed the picture of her young smiling self to imagining the horrors babies and young children are experiencing at the border.

The Associated Press recently reported that at least 2,300 migrant children had been taken from their parents at the border since Attorney General Jeff Sessions enacted the "zero-tolerance" policy early May. 

"I look at myself as a girl and imagine having to travel unsafely in a quest for safety,” the Wrinkle in Time director wrote. "Be forcibly separated from my mother. Caged with people I don’t know and who don’t know me. Alone in a world I don’t understand. Imagine this for the child you were. We cannot allow this."

Since DuVernay shared her photo on Twitter and Instagram Tuesday evening, people, including other celebrities, have joined the director by sharing photos of their younger selves in solidarity. 

Screenwriter and actress Lena Waithe shared a photo from her childhood on Instagram. 

"I can’t imagine being ripped away from my family at this age. Can you?" she wrote in part.

Mari Copeny, 10, a fierce activist and resident of Flint, Michigan, known widely as "Little Miss Flint," also shared a photo of her younger self, expressing compassion for the young children in distress at the border. 

Other celebrities have also used their platforms and large following to bring attention to the border control crisis:

 

The Trump administration has announced plans to create "tent cities" for the surging population of children separated from their parents at the border.

Border control crisis