Dozens Of Clergy Arrested Protesting Jeff Sessions In LA

LOS ANGELES, CA — About two dozen clergy members were arrested Tuesday outside the federal courthouse on Spring Street after linking arms and defying a warning from police to disperse while protesting U.S. immigration policy ahead of a visit by Attorney General Jeff Sessions' later Tuesday.

The clergy members were among several hundred protesters who had gathered with an array of immigrant advocacy groups that are planning a full day of protests, rallies and marches as Sessions visits downtown amid an ongoing outcry over the Trump administration's now-rescinded policy of separating children from their parents when they are apprehended at the Mexican border by U.S. officials.

The arrests were meant to "send a message that what is happening in this country, this zero tolerance policy, is completely egregious, that this is a no-brainer, this is a very simple thing," Revered Felicia Parazaider of The Revolution of Love congregation in North Hollywood told City News Service while she sat on Spring Street waiting to be arrested. "It's not even about politics, this is about our humanity, this is about our moral compass in this country at this historic moment. And we have to take a stand, or in this case we are sitting down and saying, no, this is not OK."

Parazaider also said the clergy members in the street objected to Sessions quoting Bible verses while defending his border policies.

"I'm an interfaith minister and I don't profess to know everything about every piece of scripture, but Jesus' message was about love, and its all about inclusively and welcoming your neighbor," she said.

Police gave a five-minute warning in advance of the arrests, with a sergeant announcing on a loudspeaker that the protest was an unlawful assembly. By then most of the several hundred protesters had moved to the sidewalk to observe, but the clergy members remained on Spring Street, linking arms and sitting down.

The Los Angeles Police Department had already closed the section of Spring Street in front of the courthouse between Temple and Aliso streets and the clergy did not appear to put up any resistance, as LAPD officers went one by one down the line and asked them to stand and be handcuffed. The arrests took over 30 minutes for LAPD officers to complete.

Sessions is scheduled to deliver a speech at 12:40 p.m. at the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation's Annual Luncheon Meeting at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Downtown L.A.

After facing significant bipartisan pressure, President Trump last week ended the recent policy of separating children from their parents at the Mexican border, although he said the government would still attempt to criminally prosecute the adults while holding the families together, and he did not set out a plan for reuniting some 2,300 children with parents from whom they've been separated. The Department of Justice has since filed a motion to revise the federal Flores settlement agreement, which limits the time immigrant children can be detained to 20 days.

During speech at annual National School Safety Conference in Reno on Monday, Sessions said that violent Central American gangs are sending children across the border illegally.

"This is not fair to the children you serve and it's not fair to you," Sessions said, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal. "The compassionate thing to do is protect our children from drugs and violence, put criminals in jail and secure our borders. Having an immigration system that has integrity and consistency is right and just and moral. The alternative is open borders which is dangerous and not a realistic prospect for America."

City News Service; Photo By: Joeseph Frazier, Shutterstock