Nine Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients were arrested while staging a sit-in outside Trump Tower in Manhattan on Tuesday, according to a press release from immigrant rights group Cosecha.
The nine people were taken into custody for civil disobedience in the moments after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced DACA would be concluded March 5, 2018, if Congress does not act to save it.
Cosecha said its supporters are “prepared to participate in a second wave of escalated action if DACA recipients are not released by the afternoon. They will be refusing to leave jail until all nine DACA recipients are released.”
“Every single day, more DACA recipients will be losing their work permits and protection from deportation. We cannot wait for Congress to act,” said Maria Fernanda Cabello, a DACA recipient who was arrested Tuesday. “The only way we will be able to win permanent protection is if we come out in mass numbers.”
In Washington, D.C., mid-Tuesday, hundreds of DACA supporters marched downtown in protest of Trump’s decision. Protesters chanted “Whose streets? Our streets.”
Following Sessions’ announcement, students at some schools in Denver staged walkouts in protest over the Trump administration’s decision to put the future of DACA in Congress’ hands.
#DACA recipients and supporters have pretty much shut down 12th Street. Chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!” pic.twitter.com/55PwTaXmVc
— Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) September 5, 2017
Meanwhile, at the Department of Justice. #DACA pic.twitter.com/me7dbH1HSQ— Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) September 5, 2017
