Activists Shut Down ICE Office in Washington, DC

The following media release was shared on Tuesday afternoon by Movimiento Cosecha:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Tuesday, July 16, at 11:30am at the ICE headquarters on the National Mall and 7th St. NW, Movimiento Cosecha and Never Again Action shutdown the ICE headquarters in downtown Washington. The action is still ongoing and several arrests have already taken place.

Watch the livestreams below:

https://www.facebook.com/NeverAgainAction/videos/471344500105540/

https://www.facebook.com/NeverAgainAction/videos/210203709885299/

https://www.facebook.com/NeverAgainAction/videos/1732806507018944/

https://www.facebook.com/NeverAgainAction/videos/429914887736117/

“As Jews, we know from our own history what happens when a government targets, dehumanizes, and strips an entire group of people of all their civil and human rights. We refuse to wait and see what happens next,” said Never Again Action’s Hannah Klein, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and the daughter of a refugee. “Never again is now.”

Today’s action in DC is organized under the banner of Never Again Action and the Cosecha Movement, an immigrant-led-movement fighting for permanent protection, dignity, and respect for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

Last week, the Cosecha Movement launched the Dignity2020 Campaign, laying out an immigration platform for the Democratic Party and 2020 hopefuls that recognizes dignity for immigrant workers and families. The platforms calls for:

• Immediate legalization of all 11 million undocumented immigrants
• An end to all detention and deportation
• Reunification of families separated by deportation under previous administrations

“In this moment of public reckoning, it’s time to put forward a new vision on immigration that recognizes the dignity of all immigrants,” said Cata Santiago a spokesperson for the Cosecha Movement. “We won’t sit back and allow the decades long bipartisan attack on immigrants to continue. We are charting a new path forward and demanding those politicians who claim to be with us to join in the fight for dignity for all immigrants.”

Never Again Action is a movement of Jews against ICE working to hold the political establishment accountable for enabling both the deportation machine that has separated immigrant families across the US for decades and the current crisis at the border. Since June 30, thousands of Jews have taken action and over 120 people have been arrested halting rush-hour traffic (Boston), stopping the Fourth of July parade (Philadelphia), and barricading the entrances of detention facilities (Los Angeles, Chicago, Rhode Island).

Trump and the GOP are ramping up the terror and cruelty of the deportation machine, but they didn’t invent it. For the past two decades the immigrant community has been experiencing a daily crisis of raids, mass deportation and the separation of families. Just two weeks ago, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that gave $4.6 billion in border funding to ICE and CBP, with no accountability over agencies that have been responsible for the deaths of children in their custody and the separation of millions of families.

Since Trump took office three years ago, millions of Americans have borne witness to the atrocities of family separation, immigrant detention, mass raids and deportation. The American public has been exposed to the realities of detention and family separation that the immigrant community has been experiencing for decades. In the face of shifting public opinion on immigration, Americans are ready for a new vision on immigration that recognizes the dignity of immigrant workers and families.