The Lights for Liberty protest drew thousands of people together on Friday, July 12, 2019, in more than 700 cities across the nation to protest America’s concentration camps. Each vigil took place at 7 pm, giving outraged voters a place to raise their voices together against the detention of children and families in documented squalor.
The gathering in Los Angeles in Westchester brought hundreds of people to protest the policy of family separation, child abuse, and the detention of refugees and asylum seekers. Many wore mylar blankets – the plastic coverings given to the children in place of cloth – in solidarity with those being held in facilities.
Los Angeles City Council member Mike Bonin spoke to the crowd, congratulating them for “standing up for justice, standing up for decency, standing up for love, for what it should mean, what it used to mean, to be an American.”
“I recognize a lot of faces here today,” Bonin continued, “because you were with us a year ago, when we held one of the first demonstrations in Los Angeles to protest this …inhumane policy. We need to get this dictator out of the White House, and shut down ICE.”
Jenny Hontz, the communications director for Speak Up, recalled being arrested for a previous act of civil disobedience and noted “I cannot believe migrant children are still being separated and abused today.”
Westchester resident Ahm A Rama organized the local rally, supporting and standing with the hundreds of thousands of others across the country coming out to protest the cruel and inhumane treatment of children and asylum seekers, asking people to “stand up and raise awareness for people who can’t. Our humanity depends on it.”
Judith Martin-Straw
Photo credit Rick Teplitz
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