A third act of civil disobedience took place this week with 30 people blocking the entrances to the Bloomington, Minnesota Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility.

Immigrant rights activists and allies took action today at ICE headquarters, holding a conference just after 7am to demand that Obama sign an executive order to end all raids and deportations pending the passage of a just immigration reform act. Veronica Mendez described the climate of fear created by immigration raids: undocumented workers afraid to go to the police when robbed or assaulted, employees unable to fight back against employers who cheat them of wages or create unsafe working conditions, families whose children are citizens but whose parents are deported. “We in Minnesota have our own dark secrets of raids,…the times that in the middle of the night or in a parking lot you are simply rounded up and taken away,” said the Reverend Loren McGrail.

After the press conference the legal demonstration continued while those who planned to commit civil disobedience moved into place.

About 30 activists were arrested as they blocked the entrances to the Bloomington Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility as a support rally took place nearby. After activists had blocked all four driveways, Bloomington police clad in helmets and carrying extended batons, marking rounds and chemical canisters congregated around the activists at the east side of the facility. As activists from the initial blockade were arrested one by one and loaded onto a city-owned bus, others came from the other blockades to take their place. On the bus activists chanted and rocked vigorously. After the approximately twenty activists were arrested, the full bus was driven to the police station, returning thirty minutes later when the remaining activists were arrested.

Hypothetically speaking of course, wouldn’t it be something if there was a nationally coordinated day of direct action against ICE?

Via / ImmigrationProf Blog and Twin Cities IndyMedia