While most Americans waved flags and participated in nationwide celebrations for the country’s 250th anniversary, a group of protesters continued to gather outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center over the Fourth of July weekend.
On Sunday, July 5, several protesters gathered to read a speech originally written by Frederick Douglass about slavery, in which he criticized a free nation that kept people in chains. Nearly 174 years later, activists reread the text in honor of those detained at the New Jersey facility.
“We are committing horrible crimes, and some of us are not looking the other way. Unfortunately, the words spoken 174 years ago, when our country was just 74 or 76 years old, are still true today. We have a lot of work to do and we wanted those words to be heard because they are still true,” said Eve Silber.
“I was here on the Fourth of July. There was nowhere else I wanted to be. For me it made no sense to do anything else but be here. There is nothing to celebrate in terms of independence when we have so many people suffering in the richest nation on the planet.”
Those gathered listened to the historic words broadcast over loudspeakers outside the barbed wire-topped fences, while others took turns reading the speech.
Meanwhile, another group identifying itself as Patterson BLM held a performance art intervention in front of the entrance to the controversial detention center. Shamz Azanedo dressed in leather dominatrix attire and held chains attached to two men dressed in ICE uniforms. Azanedo led the alleged agents through the fenced area on all fours, causing annoyance to those inside.
“Get out of here!” security personnel were heard shouting.
According to Azanedo, this action of symbolic humiliation seeks to raise awareness about the situation of the detainees, especially during the July 4 weekend.
“I honestly don’t feel like there’s much to celebrate in this country,” he said. “This country has hurt many people, members of many communities. Why celebrate that? What is there to celebrate?”
Azanedo added that her parents are immigrants, so protesting against what she called the Trump administration’s war on immigrants is of great importance to her.
“They came here to have a better life than the one we had in South America. They wanted us to have good jobs and a life of our own, not a life of poverty. They are not criminals. The narrative that this administration is promoting makes people believe that all those detained are criminals, that they are rapists or murderers, and that is not true. The sad thing is that people believe it,” he said.
Delaney Hall has housed New York immigrants, many of whom were detained at the 26 Federal Plaza facility in Lower Manhattan. For weeks, demonstrators in New York and across the country have gathered to protest the deportation system, sometimes facing shoving and the use of pepper spray by federal agents and local police.
