BOSTON (WHDH) - Eighteen protesters were arrested after hundreds of marchers shut down a busy section of Boston during rush hour on Tuesday in a demonstration against Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities on the southern border.
The protesters gathered at the Holocaust Memorial on Congress Street at 5:30 p.m. before heading down Tremont Street, causing traffic problems during rush hour.
The protest came on the heels of a new report from the Inspector General’s Office that warns of dangerous conditions in the detention facilities and the release of photos of children crowded together.
Protesters chanted “Immigrants are welcome here” as they marched to the South Bay House of Correction, calling for the facilities to be shut down and ICE to be abolished.
Protest organizer Hannah Nahar said the march was put together by members of the Jewish community and others to decry the facilities as “unacceptable.”
“We say never again, we say these camps are totally unacceptable,” Naher said. “In our histories as Jewish people, we have learned and taught never again, never let these kinds of atrocities happen and won’t stand for it.”
When the marchers reached the jail, 15 women and three men were arrested as other protesters cheered, according to the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department.
They are all facing a trespassing charge.
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