{"id":9160,"date":"2018-07-19T19:50:43","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T02:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=9160"},"modified":"2018-07-19T19:50:43","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T02:50:43","slug":"breaking-the-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/07\/19\/breaking-the-ice\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking the ICE"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h4 class=\"lead\">The Occupy movement has returned to S.F. Will it be more effective than years past?<\/h4>\n<ul class=\"author-meta\">\n<li><a class=\"author url fn\" title=\"Posts by Nuala Sawyer\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sfweekly.com\/author\/nuala-sawyer\/\" rel=\"author\">Nuala Sawyer<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Thu Jul 5th, 2018 (SFWeekly.com)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" src=\"http:\/\/1ryzas42x65e2oosia40bgli.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/news.jpg\" sizes=\"\n     (max-width: 640px) 640px,\n     (max-width: 1024px) 1024px,\n     (max-width: 1200px) 1200px,\n     (min-width: 1201px) 1200px, 100vw\" srcset=\"http:\/\/1ryzas42x65e2oosia40bgli.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/news.jpg 800w, http:\/\/1ryzas42x65e2oosia40bgli.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/news-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/1ryzas42x65e2oosia40bgli.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/news-30x23.jpg 30w, http:\/\/1ryzas42x65e2oosia40bgli.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/news-640x480.jpg 640w, http:\/\/1ryzas42x65e2oosia40bgli.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/news-300x225@2x.jpg 600w, http:\/\/1ryzas42x65e2oosia40bgli.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/news-30x23@2x.jpg 60w\" alt=\"\" \/><em>Occupy protesters hold signs outside the U.S. Immigration office in San Francisco, July 2, 2018. . Photo by Kevin Hume<\/em><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"post-attachment medium wp-caption-text\"><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s4\">On June 24, protesters in Texas\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">marched along the border, rallied outside immigration facilities, and tried to block buses carrying migrant detainees. On June 27, New York voters elected a Democratic Socialist who demands we abolish ICE. On June 28, a thousand women descended on a Senate building in Washington, D.C., in an outcry over family separations; 575 people were arrested.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">And on June 30, the collective fight for immigration reform came to San Francisco.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">The Families Belong Together march drew an estimated 30,000 participants, a remarkable effort considering the trek from Dolores Park to City Hall occurred just one week after tens of thousands turned out and marched for Pride. Parents pushed their kids in strollers, chanting in unison. People thrust signs in the air, and politicians took the stage to decry President Donald Trump\u2019s administration and the forceful ripping apart of families who cross our borders without paperwork.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">But by 2 p.m., the march was largely over, the kids taken home for naptime, the protesters congratulating one another and refueling at nearby cafes. After the Families Belong Together marchers returned to their day-to-day lives of wincing while opening news apps on their smartphones, an underground, permitless movement was organizing. On Monday, July 2, hundreds of people gathered at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office at 444 Washington St. in San Francisco, and built a makeshift, barbed-wire-topped wall that blocked the large, mechanical metal gate to the facility\u2019s parking lot. Although San Francisco is a sanctuary city, ICE employees regularly drive detained people in and out of that parking lot \u2014 or they did, before it was occupied.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">Word of the occupation spread like wildfire, and Bay Area immigration-rights groups quickly deployed their staff and supporters to the gates. The event, which officially started at 3 p.m. Monday, went well into the night, and the tents used as barriers were eventually occupied by protesters catching a bit of shut-eye.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">Shortly after 9 a.m. the next morning, it didn\u2019t look like the occupation was going anywhere. The homemade wall was surrounded by a dozen tents, several folding chairs, and tables overflowing with coffee and snacks. About 35 people milled around, talking to the press and playing music.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">A protester named Michael who declined to give his last name told\u00a0<i>SF Weekly<\/i>\u00a0that the entrance they chose to block was very intentional.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cWe don\u2019t want to interrupt the activities of immigrant families who want to get green cards, or advance their ability to stay in the country,\u201d he said. \u201cBut this building is also an ICE facility, and sometimes buses come in with people who\u2019ve been detained in other parts of California.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">The driveway has been unofficially occupied, and in true Occupy movement form, no one is planning on leaving anytime soon. There\u2019s more than enough food to go around \u2014 on Monday night tweets were sent asking people to stop bringing snacks and pizza \u2014 and protesters cycle in and out throughout the day, some working their 9-to-5 jobs before returning for an evening shift.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">Another protester, Faiq, attended the events on Monday for several hours and returned Tuesday morning to hold down the fort.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of talk across the country, we\u2019ve been seeing a lot of Occupy ICE protests and movements, so it\u2019s been something that\u2019s been on the top of everyone\u2019s minds,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re excited this is happening in San Francisco. We\u2019ve got folks from the East Bay, El Cerrito, Oakland. It\u2019s awesome.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">It\u2019s true. While San Francisco\u2019s Occupy ICE protest may be the first time many city residents have heard of the movement, we\u2019re a little late to the game; most protests at ICE facilities launched across the country last week. In Portland, lines of SWAT teams in helmets with batons stared down protesters. Occupy camps have been set up in Philadelphia, Detroit, Seattle, Wichita, and Charlotte.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">The crowds at all protests, and particularly San Francisco\u2019s, are diverse, which perhaps speaks to the far-reaching range of the immigration crisis. In this city, it\u2019s hard not to know someone who\u2019s been affected by our immigration system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cThis is an intersectional issue. It affects our Muslim brothers and sisters, as this department was created in response to terrorism,\u201d Faiq said. \u201cNow it\u2019s harassing our Latinx brothers and sisters and we\u2019re fighting with solidarity for their struggle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cThe call here is to abolish ICE, but we want to bring attention to the fact that this is something that America is founded upon: stolen land, slavery, property rights over human rights, and ICE is just a mere continuation of that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s5\">The call to \u201cabolish ICE\u201d can,\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">at first glance, appear a bit lofty and unspecific. Past Occupy movements have had similar vague requests. The first one occurred in 2009, when students affected by the recession occupied University of California campus buildings, protesting fee hikes and budget cuts. While the outrage was genuine, the lack of clear asks brought around the slogan \u201cOccupy Everything, Demand Nothing\u201d from critics. Even the catchphrase of participants at the time, \u201cWe are the 99 percent,\u201d was more about the identity of participants than goals of the movement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">Demands aside, Occupy\u2019s viral nature means success in mobilizing people. The Occupy Wall Street effort, which launched in 2011, lasted a remarkable two months before authorities forced participants out of Zuccotti Park. By that point, some clear requests had been developed: The group wanted forgiveness of student loan debt, more oversight over large banks\u2019 speculative trading, and a reduction in corporations\u2019 influence on politics. But it lacked diversity, with a poll of Zuccotti Park residents showing that 81 percent of participants were white.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">The movement fizzled after the park was cleared out, and while pop-ups of the Occupy movement have appeared over the past few years, it\u2019s lay fairly dormant since 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">Now that it\u2019s back, will it be a success? It\u2019s hard to say. As of Tuesday morning, the San Francisco camp had already been notified twice by police that they were in violation of 647e, which forbids people to \u201clodge in any building, structure, vehicle, or place, whether public or private, without the permission of the owner or person entitled to the possession or in control of it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">If a police-led sweep happens, it\u2019ll most likely occur in the middle of the night, when numbers are low and no members of the media are nearby to document it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">And the protesters are largely on their own. While local politicians spoke at the Families Belong Together rally and send out press releases bemoaning Trump\u2019s policies, those occupying San Francisco\u2019s ICE building say they\u2019re just bucking a trend.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cPoliticians are now paying lip service that ICE needs to be abolished, but we\u2019re not going to believe them until they do something concrete, like remove their funding,\u201d Michael says. \u201cIt\u2019s within their power to do that. It\u2019s within our power to block a driveway for a while. So that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s2\"><i>Nuala Sawyer is\u00a0<\/i>SF Weekly\u2019s\u00a0<i>news editor<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p7\"><span class=\"s2\">nsawyer@sfweekly.com |<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>@TheBestNuala<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Occupy movement has returned to S.F. Will it be more effective than years past? Nuala Sawyer Thu Jul 5th, 2018 (SFWeekly.com) Occupy protesters hold signs outside the U.S. Immigration office in San Francisco, July 2, 2018. . Photo by Kevin Hume On June 24, protesters in Texas\u00a0marched along the&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/07\/19\/breaking-the-ice\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9161,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9160\/revisions\/9161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}