Occupy Protests Freeze ICE Operations From Oregon to Manhattan

https://www.thedailybeast.com/occupy-protests-freeze-ice-operations-from-oregon-to-manhattan?ref=home

Occupy Protests Freeze ICE Operations From Oregon to Manhattan
Demonstrators are going after immigration authorities at their bases of operation, and it seems to be working.
Kelly Weill
06.26.18 5:06 AM ET


Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has put some New York City operations on hold while a protest outside Manhattan’s main ICE facility stretched into its fifth day.

On Thursday, demonstrators set up camp outside a downtown ICE processing center that houses an immigration court and a temporary immigrant detention facility. By Friday, ICE was smuggling detainees out a freight exit reserved for the U.S. Postal Service in order to avoid the demonstrators. By Monday, ICE had postponed all immigration hearings in the building, without clear plans to resume.

“The original call was for a 24/7 presence to occupy this space and call for the abolition of ICE,” Marisa Holmes, an activist with the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council told The Daily Beast. The group has been a leading coordinator of the demonstration, which began at the ICE processing center at 201 Varick St. Thursday night. On Monday morning, approximately a dozen protesters were blocking the facility’s doors.

Holmes said she and other activists were inspired by an occupation-style protest outside an ICE detention center in Portland, Oregon. Beginning June 17, activists blocked all entrances to the facility, leading to its closure last week. Before dawn on Monday, Department of Homeland Security police re-entered the facility, although it is unclear when the facility will reopen, or whether federal authorities will attempt to remove the demonstrators camping outside.

Now 201 Varick St. is undergoing a shutdown of its own. On Sunday, the Department of Justice sent an email to immigration attorneys informing them that “there will be no cases heard at Varick Street on Monday due to the protests,” Gothamist reported.

“I’ve been told by immigration lawyers that it’s indefinite,” Holmes said of the shutdown.

“Hearings at the Varick Street Immigration Court are expected to resume as soon as public access to the detention facility is available,” the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers immigration hearings, told The Daily Beast in an email.