Beginning on Sunday, June 17th, community members from all walks of life, working together with the Direct Action Alliance, Portland Assembly, and the Portland Democratic Socialists of America, organized a protest in the area around an ICE facility in southwest Portland with legal support provided by the National Lawyers Guild, to protest the Trump administration’s monstrous and inhumane policy of separating children from their families at the border. The protest, located at 4310 SW Macadam, has quickly developed into an occupation, with tents, supplies, facilities, and even a tiny library. On Tuesday night the occupiers committed to staying there until concrete and meaningful action is taken to reunite these families, and since Wednesday the facility has been rendered inoperative. Though there have been confrontations with police and DHS, police repression has remained minimal.
Now a few days into the occupation, what started as dozens of protesters has grown to as many as a few hundred spread across multiple encampments outside the building. We are calling on activists across the country to establish their own occupations to abolish ICE. Wherever ICE agents dare to show their faces, they must be challenged and shamed for carrying out this fascist policy. Since instituting the zero-tolerance policy, over 2,000 children have been separated from their parents, and many may never be reunited with their parents, as there is no system in place to bring them back together. There are over 11,000 immigrant children currently housed in government shelters, many of whom are here because they are fleeing violence in countries destabilized by this country’s own imperial apparatus.
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