HOUSTON, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Activists on Sunday rallied near downtown Houston in the southern U.S. state of Texas to protest a shelter plan for immigrant children separated from their parents.

People gathered around a facility that may soon become a shelter, saying they didn't want it in their city.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Saturday that he did not support the policy that requires officials to separate migrant children from their parents.

At a parade held Saturday to mark Freedom Day, Turner told the media about the government plan to house many of the children taken from their migrant parents at the border.

"You can't hurt them to try to make some grander statement, to say 'if you get here we are going to strip your kids away.' That's not who we are. I don't want a facility in the city housing these kids that have been separated. And I'm making my message loud and clear," the mayor said.

Under the "Zero-Tolerance Policy for Criminal Illegal Entry" announced by Attorney-General Jeff Sessions on April 6, Homeland Security officials are now referring all cases of illegal entry for criminal prosecution.

While detaining parents who are charged with a crime, U.S. protocol prohibits detaining their children because the children have not been charged.

On Sunday, the U.S. Border Patrol allowed reporters to briefly visit a facility in McAllen, a border city near Mexico, where families arrested at the southern U.S. border are being held.

The facility, 560 km southwest of downtown Houston, is in an old warehouse where hundreds of children are waiting, away from their parents, in a separated area.