Pramila Jayapal on Being Arrested for Protesting
About 2,000 women gathered on Thursday in Washington D.C. to protest the Trump administration's current zero-tolerance immigration policy and the separation of immigrant families. The protesters marched from the Department of Justice to the Hart Senate building, where they sat and chanted in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience, which led to the arrest of about 600 women.
Politicians also joined in the protest, including Tammy Duckworth, who came with her baby in tow, and Pramila Jayapal, who was also arrested, and who has helped plan the larger protest that will take place this Saturday.
Shortly after being released, Rep. Jayapal spoke with ELLE.com about the protest, saying women were sitting and chanting in the Hart building, "drawing attention to the tragic situation [of] children who are in cages, separated from their parents, parents who are seeking asylum, who are in prison." Jayapal said the demands are simple: They want Trump to reverse the zero-tolerance policy, free the children who have been detained and reunite them with their parents, and allow the parents to seek asylum in accordance with due process laws.
She was in the first group of women to be arrested, charged, and released, and said the large number of women arrested is a testament to how the country feels about the current border crisis, "how united actually the majority is that this is wrong and needs to stop."
"I’m just so proud of these women who understand what a serious moment we’re in and what a cruel and inhumane and intolerable and unAmerican thing we are doing thanks to the Trump administration," she continued.
Jayapal has previously visited immigrant mothers who were brought to a federal prison in Seattle, some of whom have been separated from their children. Even after a federal judge ordered this week that the administration reunite the families, she says it has yet to happen: "When I was in the federal prison, I saw a slip of paper that a mother handed to me that had her name, her identification number, and then supposedly her kids, except she said, 'These are not my children.' So we know that the Trump administration has no idea which kids belong with which parents and where they are." It is still unclear whether the administration has a timeline in place for reuniting families or how exactly this would happen in the coming days.
Photos of Thursday's protest, which was organized by the Women's March and the Center for Popular Democracy, show people wearing foil blankets, a nod to those being used by detained immigrant children.
"We have a lot to do, and this is still a crisis of extreme proportions," Jayapal said. "As a member of Congress, it’s a shame that this government, my government, is doing this to children... I think it is a really beautiful thing that people are allowing themselves to feel so deeply the tragedy of what we’re doing. And that is what’s turning them out, so I’m just grateful to people who refuse to let this die and who are keeping it at the forefront even with all the important issues we have in front of us."
This Saturday, people will protest across the country to demand the end of family separation and detention. You can find a rally near you at familiesbelongtogether.org.
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