Women Protest Mike Pence As 'Handmaids' In Lower Manhattan

FINANCIAL DISTRICT, NY — Dozens of protestors used a Lower Manhattan visit by Vice President Mike Pence and other high ranking Trump administration officials to slam the government's zero-tolerance immigration policies.

Sign-waving protestors gathered Tuesday morning outside of the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House where Pence was speaking at a cybersecurity summit. Women donned red cloaks and white caps mimicking the dystopian TV series "The Handmaid's Tale," holding up children's shoes to represent immigrant children torn from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Protestors amassed a pile of the shoes at the foot of the building where Pence was speaking.

"Shame on this administration. Shame on you," shouted immigration activist Therese Patricia Okoumou, 44, who was arrested for climbing the Statue of Liberty on July 4. "It is an atrocity to imagine in the United States of America, in the 21 century we are using children as bait for political reason, for political gain."

"The Handmaid’s Tale” TV series, based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, takes place in a totalitarian society where a religious group has overthrown the United States and turned it into the Republic of Gilead. There, some women known as handmaids are forced to become child bearers for infertile couples.

Protestors held signs reading, "Give Back The Children You Stole," "The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go" and "Abolish I.C.E." One Brooklyn woman took off work to join protestors.

"It's deplorable what our country is doing — I knew I had to come down here when I heard Pence had the nerve to come to New York," said Sara Ramirez, 32, who works in a Carroll Gardens animal hospital. "We need to be out on the streets making our voices known — everyday. It's not enough just be appalled, you have to fight against the policies you disagree with."

Aside from Pence, the summit also included the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. An organizer hoped the protest would help "wake up the people on the streets who don't want their future."

“Our message is that these ideals are our future," said Sunsara Taylor, a lead organizer with Refuse Fascism behind the event. "Mike Pence has been a dark ages, bigoted, anti-science theocrat for decades. He's not going to change, but the people out here who don’t want his future — we’re trying to wake them up."

Photos courtesy of Refuse Fascism