Immigration activists arrested at Capitol
By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Updated: 2:07 p.m. on Thursday, August 1, 2013
Dozens of immigration-rights activists were arrested outside the Capitol on Thursday in a civil-disobedience action they said marked an escalation in their push to get Congress to pass an immigration bill this year.
Chanting slogans and demanding an end to deportations, more than 40 activists, including some major figures in the labor movement, blocked traffic on Independence Avenue, forcing police to arrest them.
Three of those arrested were in the country illegally, according to organizers who said they had not yet learned what the official charges were.
Authorities will have to decide how to handle the illegal immigrants who were arrested and whether they will be put in deportation proceedings — though that seems unlikely given the administration’s decision to target only serious criminals for deportation.
The activists said the action was the first of what will be a summer of protests and civil disobedience as they try to pressure Congress to act.
“If it takes a million of us to march on Washington, we’ll do that too,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who came out to support those being arrested.
About 200 activists cheered from the sidewalk as their fellow protesters were arrested, with some even chanting the names of their friends as police put plastic handcuffs on them and put them into waiting vans.
The Senate passed an immigration bill granting legal status to most illegal immigrants earlier this summer, but the House is missing an informal deadline to act before the end of this week.
Fearing momentum slipping away, activists have said they will try to make the cost of inaction too high for all sides by staging more protests and taking the fight back to the home districts and states of members of Congress.
“I think there’s a sense that if there is no ramp-up, there’d be no consequences,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, Arizona Democrat.
The protests come on the heels of another action in Arizona last week, where nine illegal immigrants crossed into Mexico then tried to regain admittance to the U.S., saying they would qualify for President Obama’s non-deportation policy for so-called “Dreamers,” who were brought to the U.S. as children and are considered the most sympathetic cases in the immigration debate.
Calling themselves the Dream 9, they are being held by immigration authorities and have staged a hunger strike.
A number of members of Congress have called for the administration to release the activists, highlighting the difficult situation the White House finds itself in. Mr. Obama is pushing for an immigration deal out of Congress, but in the meantime he says he cannot stop deportations.
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