For tourists visiting the Statue of Liberty on Wednesday, the 4th of July was a bit more colorful than expected.
A woman climbed up the robes of the statue as part of a protest to the separation of migrant families and remained up there for nearly three hours before law enforcement managed to take her into custody.
The woman told the authorities that she wouldn’t come down from the statue until “all the children are released,” according to CNN.
While she reportedly acted alone in the statue climb, the woman is affiliated with Rise and Resist, a group that had separately demonstrated at the statue on Wednesday. Seven people involved were arrested after hanging a banner calling for ICE to be abolished. They called the agency a “threat to our liberty and way of life,” reports The New York Times.
A woman climbed up to the robes of the Statue of Liberty to protest the separation of migrant families — she was taken into custody after a standoff with police on the Fourth of July: https://t.co/FfvAkHpLhz pic.twitter.com/zDvxblqgBl
— CNN International (@cnni) July 5, 2018
The Independence Day protests are far from the first to call for an end to Trump administration immigration policies. Here are some of the most notable:
Mass arrests in Washington D.C.
On June 28, hundreds of women activists marched from Washington D.C.’s Freedom Plaza to Capitol Hill to protest Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy and to call for ICE to be abolished. Once they arrived to the Hart Senate Office Building, the protestors donned foil blankets while chanting “abolish ICE!” and “where are the children?”
Participants included several lawmakers and other celebrities, including actress Susan Sarandon, who was arrested alongside more than 550 other individuals. They were all charged a $50 citation for “unlawfully demonstrating.”
Families Belong Together
And on June 30, hundreds of “Families Belong Together” protests took place across the country in all 50 states. Protests in Washington D.C., and New York City each drew close to 30,000 people.
Restaurant shaming
Then there are the spontaneous protests as well, including a group of individuals who shouted “shame, shame” at Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as she dined at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, DC earlier in June. The protestors variously asked her “how do you sleep at night?” and “do you hear the babies crying?,” and threatened that “if kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace,” before Nielsen finally left the restaurant.
LaGuardia airport
Just a day later, protestors gathered at New York’s LaGuardia airport after it was revealed that 200 migrant children who had been separated from their parents had been transferred to facilities in New York.
President Trump signed an executive order calling for the end to the separation of these families on June 20, but many children remain separated from their parents.
