網頁

星期三, 7月 03, 2019

1000 Jews and supporters rallied in demand of closing border camps


(Boston Orange) More than 1,000 people rallied through Boston downtown to South Bay Detention Center on evening of July 2nd, demanding elected officials to close camps at border, defund ICE and CBP, and provide permanent protection for all undocumented immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. 
This group of people includes Jews, immigrants and allies, marched from the New England Holocaust Memorial through downtown Boston to the South Bay Detention Center. 18 of them were arrested shutting down the entrance of the South Bay Detention Center.
One of the protester is Michaela Caplan, a Jewish American whose family was heavily affected by the Holocaust and the intergenerational waves of trauma that followed. He said that his being there is first and foremost that he is a Jewish American, and then his family was heavily affected by the Holocaust and the intergenerational waves of trauma that followed.
Michaela Caplan says  “I grew up learning not just about the Holocaust but what led up to it— years of increasingly violent rhetoric and dangerous dehumanization of the Jewish people. I learned about the millions of people that looked away as mass atrocity grew and crystallized. To me, never again does not only mean fighting dehumanization and terrorizing of entire communities; it means fighting apathy and bystanderism. Never again is now.”
The protestors sang Jewish prayers of healing and mourning to grieve for those who have fallen ill or lost their lives because of ICE and CBP’s inhumane policies. 
18 of the protestors were arrested shutting down the entrance of the South Bay Detention Center.
“This is Judaism in action,” said Jaclyn Friedman who was arrested blocking the steps to the detention center.
           Organizers of the protest says, “today, eleven million immigrants and asylum-seekers across the United States are subjected to physical and psychological abuse by our own government. This crisis isn’t just happening at the border, but in our neighborhoods and communities here in Massachusetts and across the US. Many of our congressmen who have spoken out against the concentration camps voted last week to give ICE more funding. We cannot become numb and paralyzed by the depth of these atrocities and human rights abuses - we must take action on a massive scale”.
           According to a statement provided by protest organizers, this action comes following a protest on Sunday in Elizabeth, NJ where 36 young Jews were arrested for stopping business as usual at the Elizabeth Detention Center (Newsweek, JTA, Teen Vogue), and in tandem with protests happening this week across the country. 18 activists blocked an ICE detention center in Central Falls, RI, and more actions are planned: in Los Angeles on July 3rd, in Philadelphia on July 4th, and in San Francisco on July 5th. They demand dignity and permanent protection for all immigrants and migrants and safe pathways for those seeking refuge from places beleaguered by colonialism and violence. They also demand an end to detention and the abolition of ICE.  As Jews, they’ve seen this before. They know how it ends. It is their duty, both as Jews and as moral human beings, to stand up and take action. They will not stop until the camps are closed. 

沒有留言: