Migrants, supporters march in Columbia Heights after ICE raids on apartments
Video: Speakers denounce Bowser's collaboration, big march heads to 16th st
On the 12th of July, ICE agents raided the Sarbin Towers apartments on 16th st, arresting nine people both residents and passers by. Other raids also occurred that week, as ICE assaulted this supposed sanctuary city. In response, a very large crowd marched from a the park at 14th and Kenyon and blocked 16th st in several locations, including at the site of the Sarbin Towers raid.
Sarbin Towers was not the only ICE raid in DC in the week leading up to this massive protest. On Ga Ave, ICE raided a private residence with help from DC Mayor Bowser's Metropolitan Police Department. No doubt a police department whose "gun recovery unit" wears the Sun Cross as a racist symbol in Anacostia was quite happy to help ICE terrorize still more people of color. ICE vans have also been spotted pulling people off the street and at a restaurant.
Some of the speakers at the starting rally on July 16 chewed out Mayor Bowser for claiming DC is a "sanctuary city" while permitting MPD to cooperate openly with ICE on at least one raid and doing exactly nothing to stop ICE's terror raids on other residential buildings. One bluntly called out the Mayor for collaboration with Trump's regime and with ICE. After WWII, a charge of collaboration with the Nazis carried very serious consequences including in many cases prosecution in court. Mayor Bowser needs to decide: Is she with DC or is she with Trump and both his real estate developer and alt-right buddies?
ICE has been a major driver of what is turning out to be a long, hot summer in more ways than the weather. The brutality of what they have done tearing small children away from their mothers is now compounded by ICE's residential terrorism. Their message is that ALL Latinx people regardless of status with the colonial settler regime can be and will be assaulted and humiliated in their own homes so long as Donald Trump keeps giving them the green light. There is only so far ICE's terrorists can push before people push back. The rally and street march of July 16th was but a tiny taste of what continued aggression might unleash. The Mt Pleasant Uprising of 1991 was triggered by a single cop shooting and wounding one person after handcuffing him for drinking in public. Now ICE is assaulting and kidnapping people in their own homes.
The starting rally at 14th and Kenyon streets
ICE not welcome here!
Marching to 16th st
Circled up blocking 16th st near the end
Protesters at the location of Thursday's ICE raid on an apartment building
At 16th and Irving as the last rally blocking the street wrapped up
