A Philadelphia woman who oversees a Vietnamese advocacy group was charged with trespassing onto and dumping trash at the Virginia home of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement director.
Nancy Nguyen, executive director of VietLead, was charged Monday with entering the property of another for the purposes of interfering with property rights and dumping trash on Sept. 8 at the Richmond home of the senior official performing the duties of ICE Director Tony Pham, according to the Richmond Times Dispatch. Pham is a U.S. citizen who came as a Vietnamese refugee.
Video footage shows that between five and 10 people dressed in black ran onto Pham’s front lawn and panted signs across his lawn that condemned the federal agency. Protesters set up fake bodies that were meant to represent children in ICE custody, wrapped in aluminum blankets. Others planted crosses into Pham’s lawn as a symbol for detainees who died while in ICE custody. Protesters also hurled items at the front of Pham’s house while chanting criticisms at him.
Local police from Henrico, Virginia, said in a statement that Pham was not home at the time of the incident, but the protesters “caused fear to his family.” The police identified Nguyen as one of the protesters and obtained two misdemeanor warrants for her arrest.
“While protesting is a protected First Amendment activity, doing so on one’s private property is illegal,” the department said. “Henrico Police is working to identify others who were present on September 8th.”
The Philadelphia Police Department arrested Nguyen, 37, at her home on Oct. 8. Nguyen’s organization wrote in a Facebook post to its 3,000 followers that “Nancy, mother of a 3 and 1 year old was abruptly taken at her home without warning by Philadelphia police in collaboration with federal law enforcement.” VietLead said the arrests were over “bogus charges.”
The group claimed Nguyen’s arrest was “politically motivated” and meant to send a message of what the federal government was “willing to do to you if you dare to fight back.”
“Tony Pham continues to use his refugee narrative to justify his qualification to lead an institution that continues to enact state-sanctioned violence against Black and Brown communities,” VietLead said on Facebook.
Pham said in a September radio interview with WRVA that “the real protest should’ve been at my office” in Washington.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
