#OccupyICELA Phase II Transition Statement

Update from #OccupyICELA as well as information on their latest moves in the coming terrain.

For the past four weeks, we, the participants of #OccupyICELA, have maintained a blockade of the West Aliso Street driveway of the Edward Roybal Federal Building, a complex that houses both ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Los Angeles field office and the Metropolitan Detention Center where many immigrants are being imprisoned.

We have been doing this—as well as holding teach-ins with activist community groups, helping distribute resources to people in need, creating art, participating in civil disobedience actions and more—to draw heightened attention to the demand we share with a rapidly growing number of concerned people across the country: to ABOLISH ICE. And beyond that, to help bring an end to the entire fascist program of ethnic cleansing against non-white immigrants currently being led by Donald Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen—and to support those immigrants and others suffering and at risk in the here and now.

Today we are introducing the next phase of our efforts.

Today, as we enter the second month of this demonstration, we, the participants of #OccupyICELA are announcing our evolution from Phase I, a focus on a continuous camp and blockade, into Phase II, multiple fronts that will be able to evolve and continue indefinitely.

The first part of this evolution is a focus on growing the weekly open community vigil that we began last Friday, called #OneMillionFlames, in coalition with numerous #OccupyICE groups, Families Belong Together and many others across the country. We will continue keeping this vigil here, where we have held our encampment, for all immigrant children, families and others caged, terrorized and abused by the US government and its agents, including by ICE, Border Patrol, DHS, local police departments working with them and the US prison-industrial complex as a whole.

This evolution in form is in part an adaptation to actions taken by LA Mayor Eric Garcetti and LAPD collaborating with ICE and other federal agencies. Our camp has undergone frequent harassment by federal officials and private building security. In addition, while Mayor Garcetti has refused to acknowledge #OccupyICELA directly, we’ve learned that his LAPD has been instructed to tear down the tents of some of our houseless neighbors in Downtown LA and tell them to relocate to our camp’s location, with the goal of disrupting and destabilizing our peaceful demonstration. While we want to continue helping our houseless neighbors, we also want to provide a baseline of safety to everyone participating in our demonstration, which becomes increasingly difficult when our camp size decreases.

As our form evolves, we will continue this fight together with #OccupyICE participants across the country, as well as organizations like ICE Out of LA, March and Rally, Movimiento Cosecha, Freedom for Immigrants and countless others who have been doing related hard work since long before our camp began, to whom we feel profound respect, gratitude and humility.

We feel deep respect and gratitude also towards everyone participating in #OccupyICEPDX and every other #OccupyICE encampment, whose strength, courage and ingenuity have inspired us to start this first phase and to continue—and to every other person and group who has supported our camp, our blockade and our goal to ABOLISH ICE. We couldn’t have made it this far without all of you. And our work has only begun.

We hope you—everyone reading this—will continue it with us, starting tonight at our second #OneMillionFlames vigil, here on West Aliso Street between North Alameda and North Los Angeles streets in Downtown LA.

Love and solidarity,

#OccupyICELA
July 20, 2018