Scores of activists blocked the entrances and exits of the ICE offices in Washington, D.C. as part of an effort to “shut down ICE.” The action was successful at shutting down the facility for 5 hours.
The Jewish activist group, Never Again Action tweeted “We are shutting down every entry point to the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that is responsible for this terror against the immigrant community. We are shutting down business as usual #ShutDownICE”
The group tweeted from the protest, “The crowd continues to sing “We’ve got ancestors at our backs” as police line up behind #JewsAgainstICE, @CosechaMovement, immigrants and allies who are shutting down @ICEgov.”
A spokesperson for Never Again Action said at least a dozen people were arrested during the action. The group tweeted, “Police are dragging us away from the ICE HQ garage, using physical force to try to stop our peaceful protest. But we aren’t going anywhere, not while immigrants are separated from their families, not after all that we’ve learned from the horrors of the Holocaust. #ShutDownICE”
Never Again Action began the demonstration on the National Mall before marching towards ICE headquarters. When they arrived at ICE headquarters, the protesters linked arms and stood in front of doors and on the streets. ICE employees who tried to enter the facility were met by demonstrators.
Never Again Action and Movimiento Cosecha released the following statement:
“We said we were going to shut down ICE yesterday, and that is exactly what we did. We kept this agency — an agency that is cruel in its design — from going about their business of terrorizing immigrant communities.”
According to a press release from Never Again Action, leaked emails from ICE, obtained by Ken Klippenstein, revealed that the action “‘Disrupt[ed] Normal Operations’ and Put ICE Headquarters on ‘Lock Down Condition.’”
Photo: “Protesting ICE…” by Charles Edward Miller is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
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