Group To Hold Protest At ICE Facility In Burlington

Press release via Bearing Witness

BURLINGTON, MA — This Wednesday, August 27, Javier Luengo-Garrido, an organizing strategist for ACLU of Massachusetts, will speak to those gathered outside 1000 District Avenue, home to ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Office. The gathering, called Bearing Witness @ ICE, has grown weekly from 2 at its first witness on April 23 to close to 500, and has since met for two hours every Wednesday to show their support for immigrants, express shame at ICE behavior, and bear witness to what they consider the cruel and unconstitutional actions of the US government. The subject of Mr. Luengo-Garrido’s address will be the misconception that the immigration system “worked before Trump,” and how the immigrant community has experienced immigration enforcement under various administrations.

Luengo-Garrido lived the first ten years of his life under a military dictatorship. Growing up in Chile, he saw soldiers in the street, observed a curfew and lived in a country where dissidents were detained and disappeared. Decades later, Luengo-Garrido’s early years still inform his work at the ACLU, where he focuses on immigration, unarmed alternatives to police, local and state advocacy, and education campaigns.

Back in December, Luengo-Garrido predicted, “[The Trump administration is] going to start challenging citizenship papers. They are going to start challenging naturalization. For the last 15 to 20 years, we know that [the Right has] been analyzing and studying the federalization of the National Guard.” Nine months later, we see federalized National Guard troops on the ground in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, with Trump reportedly eyeing Chicago next.

While angered by the Trump administration’s actions, Luengo-Garrido also believes that Democrats have some responsibility for how these regressive immigration policies have been able to unfold. When the party held control of the House, Senate and presidency in 2020, it “would have been able to create certain conditions to protect minorities,” he writes, “[but] they chose not to do it…. That’s one of the many, many reasons why we find ourselves where we are right now.”

Bearing Witness @ ICE holds stand-outs every Wednesday at the Burlington ICE facility between 11:00 am and 1:00 pm. All who have an interest in due process, supporting those detained at the facility, and peacefully protesting our government’s inhumane actions are invited.