Protests Nationwide Demand:
Horrific Assaults on Immigrants Must Stop
| revcom.us
Banner on overpass at ICE Protest in Seattle. Photo: RefuseFascism.org
There were dozens of protests large and small in towns and cities around the country this weekend expressing anger and outrage at the horrific assault on Latino immigrants by the Trump/Pence regime’s Gestapo ICE agents in Mississippi, coming on the heels of the mass murder of Mexicans and Latinos by a white supremacist in El Paso.
On Saturday, August 10, about 700 protesters marched through Manhattan streets to the West Side Highway. Shortly after 1:00 p.m., 100 marchers, with signs saying “Abolish ICE” and “Close the Camps” sat down and locked arms, blocking all lanes of the very busy highway for at least 30 minutes. Immigrant rights group Cosecha, climate action group Extinction Rebellion, progressive Jewish groups, and a wide range of other political and religious organizations came together in the protest. Police arrested about 100 of the protesters for “disorderly conduct,” but not before traffic had been massively disrupted.
Also over the weekend, hundreds protested outside the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Facility; hundreds in Seattle targeted the downtown ICE facility; hundreds more protested the ICE facility in Kankakee, Illinois—these and others were part of the Jewish group Never Again Action’s nationwide campaign demanding #CloseTheCamps and a stop to immigrant deportations. Hundreds demonstrated in DC, and other actions took place in Raleigh, North Carolina; Portland, Oregon; Tucson, Arizona; Salt Lake City, Utah; Philadelphia; Kenosha, Wisconsin; and many other cities.
On Thursday, August 8, a press conference condemning the ICE raids the day before was held in Jackson, Mississippi, which included the immigrant rights group MIRA, NAACP, ACLU, and church groups.
RefuseFascism.org called people into the streets over three days, Friday August 9, to Sunday August 11, in the wake of the El Paso massacre and ICE raids in Mississippi, and fought for people to take up the challenge of driving out the Trump/Pence fascist regime through nonviolent, sustained mass protest. See here for sights and sounds from the three days.
As we write on Sunday, August 11, protesters connected with Never Again Action and #ClosetheCamps have been arrested after blocking the entrance to the Howard County, Maryland, Detention Center for over four hours this afternoon; and others have been arrested at Amazon Books in Manhattan for organizing a sit-in demanding Amazon Web Service end its technical support for ICE.
West Side Highway in New York City. Photo Twitter/@BerksonGold
#JewsAgainstICE protest at Jerome Combs Detention Center, Kankakee, Illinois. Photo: Twitter/@osodeltoro
ICE protest in San Francisco. Photo: screenshot from NBC video
Boston, Massachusetts protest against ICE. Photo: Twitter/@UR_Ninja
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