Activists who protested Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as she dined at a Mexican restaurant Tuesday say others involved in enforcing tough immigration policies should take notice, though dinner disruptions won’t necessarily be a recurring form of activism.
The unconventional demonstration inside downtown D.C.’s MXDC Cocina Mexicana featured about 10 minutes of chants — including “Kirstjen Nielsen, you’re a villain, locking up immigrant children” — after a tip from a fellow restaurant diner.
[Related: Trump heaps praise on Kirstjen Nielsen amid zero tolerance policy backlash]
In less than 45 minutes, activists from the local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America assembled a dozen people to protest Nielsen, blasting out social media invites and emails to DSA and Industrial Workers of the World members.
Two DSA members who participated told the Washington Examiner that restaurant protests aren’t a specific strategy, and that the group is instead focused on monthly protests at the D.C.-area homes of deportation “profiteers.”
The group already has protested two private prison officials and one administration official, and a July 1 protest in Virginia will target another person who has not been publicly identified. One member referred to the person as a “Trump official,” but the other declined to confirm this.
DSA member Allison Hrabar, one of those who protested Nielsen on Tuesday, said that after intense coverage of suspected illegal immigrants being separated from their children, “it feels really good to confront people who are actually responsible, which is what we have a unique opportunity to do in D.C.”
[Also read: Trump administration detaining babies, toddlers in ‘tender-age’ centers: Report]
Hrabar works at the Justice Department as a paralegal specialist, and said her activism was not part of her official work. She said she was exercising her First Amendment rights off the clock.
“If you see these people in public, you should remind them that they shouldn’t have peace,” she said. “We aren’t the only ones who can do this. Anyone who sees Kirstjen Nielsen at dinner, anyone who sees anyone who works at DHS and ICE at dinner can confront them like this, and that’s what we hope this will inspire people to do.”
The Trump administration’s new zero tolerance policy means prosecution of adults accused of illegally entering the U.S., resulting in separation of children from their parents. The new strategy is widely seen as a gambit to force legislative action, though after intense criticism President Trump said Wednesday he will sign an executive order ending family separations, despite previously saying a court ruling required it.
Hrabar said she would be willing to attend another restaurant protest, but that she hopes DSA’s example will inspire others, and said there are signs that’s happening.
“A lot of people have been reaching out, either asking how we recognized her, or sending us places that they heard other people like to go. Downtown D.C. is crawling with bureaucrats,” Hrabar said. “I’m sure this will continue to happen in Metro Center, if I happen to be nearby. But these people don’t just live in D.C.”
“When you confront [people with financial] capital — and a lot of people who live in D.C. work for powerful people — it can be kind of scary, but we think it’s important to put ourselves on the line,” Hrabar said.
Although D.C. has been flush with protest activity since Trump’s election, targeting individuals is less common. In one example last year, marijuana activists rolled a joint in Jeff Sessions’ Senate office to protest the attorney general nominee’s stance on drug policy.
Code Pink, an anti-war group that visited officials’ homes during past administrations, had activists dressed as KKK members protest Sessions at his confirmation hearing, before appearing in large numbers at CIA Director Gina Haspel’s hearing this year. “Bloody Gina!” shouted one heckler. Another, 78-year-old CIA veteran Ray McGovern, was charged with resisting arrest after he was tackled.
But restaurant protests could instill new social anxieties for Washington’s officials and lobbyists.
Margaret McLaughlin, another activist who protested Nielsen, said that “as long as the Trump administration is going to separate families at the border and bust unions and put more and more people at danger — all kinds of people — we are going to continue to fight.”
“The people that are responsible for these policies should not be able to live in peace,” McLaughlin said.
But McLaughlin isn’t committing to more restaurant protests, and said the socialist group sets its own priorities and won’t act on unsolicited tips from the public.
“We’re not really at the general public’s beck and call,” she said. “We do what we want as an organization, and we have democratically chosen priorities that we work on together. So a member of the public seeing an official on the street and contacting us, we’re not going to do anything.”
McLaughlin said that “we are, with most of our work, focused on the revolving door of people who have worked at DHS and other government agencies and have taken that and cashed in and are making six figures — 300, 400, 500 thousand a year — to lobby their former peers to build out the private prison system. This isn’t just an immigration issue. This is an issue for any person who has a family member or friend locked up.”
McLaughlin said the message she hopes the Nielsen protest will send is “stop ripping apart families.”
“I’m not trying to threaten anyone, I just want families to be together and not be imprisoned and in jail [after] escaping terrors happening in their countries because of our foreign policy,” she said.
