Liberal Jewish groups protesting Trump’s new legislation on illegal immigrants who arrived in the US as children were arrested on Capitol Hill.
By Margot Dudkevitch, World Israel News
Some 82 American Jewish activists were arrested while protesting on Capitol Hill Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s plan to end a program that protects hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants (known as ‘Dreamers’) who came to the United States as children. US Capitol Police director Eva Malecki told the Huffington Post that the protesters were charged for “crowding and obstructing” in a public building.
Activists and rabbis from liberal Jewish groups such as the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, the Anti-Defamation League and Bend the Arc Jewish Action were among the protesters, some wearing prayer shawls. They gathered in the center of the Russell Senate Office Building, chanting “Let my people stay.”
Members of Congress Ted Deutch and disgraced former DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman, Democrats from Florida, were among the demonstrators.
The protesters demanded that Congress take action to prevent the deportation of tens of thousands of people. At one point, they sat on the floor, refusing to move.
The activists also submitted a petition to Congress, signed by some 5,000 people, stating that “as Jews, we have seen this before. We stand with our immigration neighbors on the side of Justice, not oppression, but of liberation, not deportation.”
Louis Lipsky, an American Republican who lives in Israel, disagrees with the protesters, saying Trump is in the right place at the right time.
Trump is ‘Doing the Right Thing’
“He doesn’t leave things on a back burner, but tries to bring them to a boil,” Lipsky said in an interview with World Israel News Thursday. He believes the American president is “doing the right thing.”
“What Trump has succeeded in doing is giving Congress six months to come up with a bill that deals with the issue. This may mean they face deportation or they will become American citizens, but now the issue is being dealt with.
“Trump expects Congress to come up with a solution and deal with the issue of undocumented immigrants and not leave them in limbo,” Lipsky said, adding that he believes the president is doing the right thing at the right time. “There is right, wrong or unfair. If you come to a country illegally or overstay your visa, that country has the right to deport you.”