25 arrested, including clergy, amid Jeff Sessions immigration protest in DTLA

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Arrests were made as hundreds of protesters gathered in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday ahead of a planned visit by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Twenty-five people were taken into custody after the peaceful organized protest was declared an unlawful assembly by Los Angeles police. Clergy were seen among those being arrested.

Crowds holding signs were given a five-minute warning to disperse by LAPD before the arrests took place, according to authorities. The protesters were cited and released.

Demonstrators in white clergy robes linked arms across the street and chanted "reunite," others waving signs that bore slogans, among them, "Stop separating families."

"Sessions, you're not welcome in our communities and your hatred is not welcome in our communities," said Jose Montez of Children Over Politics as he spoke at the rally.

The protest was organized by CHIRLA and included several other immigrant rights groups, who marched through the streets in front of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, where Sessions was expected to speak.

"As a United Methodist, and he's a fellow United Methodist, this is not right, and this is not part of our Christian teachings or our values or our beliefs," said Rev. Allison Mack, a protester from North Hollywood United Methodist Church.

Sessions was in Los Angeles to to deliver remarks to the Criminal Justice Foundation's annual luncheon at the hotel.

"The president made clear that we're going to do everything in our power to avoid separating families, but we're going to work to prosecute all of those adults who come here unlawfully," the attorney general said at the luncheon.

The policy to separate parents and children has been ended, but there remain more than 2,000 immigrant children in government-contracted shelters across the country that were separated from their parents at the border.