ICE barricades DC headquarters to block protester ‘occupation’ – By Steven Nelson (washingtonexaminer.com) / June 27 2018
Amid heavy rain, activists chanted slogans anyhow, including “quit your jobs!” at Department of Homeland Security guards and ICE employees who peered from windows.
(Steven Nelson/Washington Examiner)
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers barricaded an employee and visitor entrance Wednesday to prevent activists from performing an “occupation” of the agency’s D.C. headquarters.
Several dozen activists had intended to enter the building to protest Trump administration deportation and border detention policies, but arrived to find temporary fencing and a line of officers blocking their way.
Amid heavy rain, activists chanted slogans anyhow, including “quit your jobs!” at Department of Homeland Security guards and ICE employees who peered from windows.
The protest was organized by Movimiento Cosecha and was advertised in a press release as a demonstration by “undocumented activists and allies,” as similar protests occur in other cities.
Anti-ICE protesters chant "quit your jobs" pic.twitter.com/5DCkbniBwQ
— Steven Nelson (@stevennelson10) June 27, 2018
Participants generally were reluctant to speak with reporters, directing journalists to Cosecha spokeswoman Alejandra, who declined to offer her last name.
Alejandra, an immigrant from Mexico, told the Washington Examiner that her mother and brothers illegally crossed the border, allowing her to sympathize with children separated from parents under “zero tolerance” policies, which President Trump has temporarily modified.
“They were ready for us,” said Alejandra, who used the surname Primavera — the word for spring — in a press release.
A team of activists was assigned to locate an unguarded entrance into the building, but failed to do so.
Alejandra said she legally entered the U.S. after her family crossed the border illegally, but that ICE is “interrupting our families, our lives.” She said she came to the building to “demand respect for all the immigrants.”
“It’s been going for years and years, but now that it’s in the public eye it’s hard not to see it,” she said. “Obama played to the Latin community very well … people were like, ‘yes, yes, oh Obama,’ but he was the president who deported more people.
“We don’t believe in politicians,” she said.
Activists chanted various slogans outside of the ICE entrance, including “from Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have gotta go!” and “Undocumented — unafraid.”
New chant at ICE occupation attempt in D.C.: "From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have gotta go" pic.twitter.com/s798tM19mu
— Steven Nelson (@stevennelson10) June 27, 2018
After unsuccessfully chanting “let us in!” activists moved to the lightly trafficked 12th Street, where one organizer announced that activists would block the road until being “forcibly arrested.”
“Fuck your borders, fuck your walls, we will make your system fall,” activists chanted while blocking the road. After several minutes without arrests, the protest group marched partially around the ICE building and then disbanded.
“We shut it down,” one activist said.
Spokespeople for ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
