Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen faced protesters as she ate at a Mexican restaurant near the White House on Tuesday evening.

Shouting “Shame!” and playing audio from ProPublica of children sobbing as Border Patrol agents separate them from their parents, members of the Metro D.C. Democratic Socialists confronted Nielsen during her dinner at MXDC Cocina Mexicana.

“If kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace,” about a dozen protesters chanted. One of the protesters, Austin Kendall, told DCist that three people dining in the restaurant joined them, and demonstrators left the restaurant to applause.

At a press conference Monday, Nielsen defended the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, which has separated 2,342 children from their parents after they crossed the Southern U.S. border since May, according to DHS. The former director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told NBC that many of these separations can be permanent.

An organizer with the D.C. Democratic Socialists tweeted around 8:15 p.m. that Nielsen was dining at MXDC and invited others to join in confronting her. Video footage shows protesters entering the restaurant and approaching Nielsen’s table.

Two men stood between them and the secretary, who was dining with an unidentified man. Nielsen didn’t look up at the protesters. One protester identified the men blocking the table as Nielsen’s security detail.

In a statement released on Wednesday morning, MXDC said it “managed the situation in the best interest of safety for everyone on June 19th as a result of the unusual situation.”

Kendall says the initial plan had been to stay until police arrived, but “police were so slow to arrive that we decided we didn’t want to lose our momentum.” He says law enforcement showed up as they were walking out the door. “We began filming immediately because they were very aggressive,” he says. There were no arrests.

D.C. DSA’s migrant justice direct action group has staged three protests outside the homes of area residents who’ve worked as prior directors of ICE and as executives at private prison groups that work with ICE. Their next scheduled direct action is July 1, a day after thousands plan to protest family separation outside the White House.

“Our opposition has always been to ICE, been to any kind of homeland security that would criminalize immigrants and migrants,” says Kendall. “It’s a way of shedding light on how the whole system functioned.”

He says that the immediate reaction to the video of the protesters confronting Nielsen “is pretty heartening, but we want this to inspire people to take direct action, to make it uncomfortable for politicians who are enacting these policies to continue to do that.”

Tyler Houlton, a DHS spokesperson, responded to the protest with tweets saying that Nielsen “heard from a small group of protestors who share her concern with our current immigration laws that have created … The Secretary has been working with Members of Congress for months in search of a solution and she will continue to do so this week.”

This post has been updated with a statement from MXDC and additional information about the men blocking Nielsen’s table.