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Police arrested 9 individuals who have been protesting towards Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Sen. Susan Collins’ Portland, Maine workplace on Tuesday afternoon.
The Portland Police Division stated there have been about 50 protesters on the eighth flooring of One Canal Plaza, a downtown workplace constructing.
“The group was repeatedly informed if they didn’t disperse, people could be charged with Felony Trespass,” the division stated in a assertion. “After a number of warnings, lots of the protesters left the constructing, whereas 9 remained and requested to be arrested.”
The ages of the arrested protesters ranged from 31 to 65. They sang “we will overcome” within the hallway outdoors the workplace and referred to as on Collins to make use of her place because the Senate’s prime appropriator to finish funding for ICE.
One of many protesters was Christine Dyke, lead minister of the Gorham First Parish Congregational Church. She informed WGME-TV that ICE ought to finish its newest deportation operation in Maine as a result of it is creating worry within the immigrant group.
“They left their nation out of worry and got here right here to make an asylum declare,” she stated. “Sadly they’re discovering the identical drawback right here and it simply saddens us and breaks our coronary heart that we could not be the welcoming nation that they thought that we have been.”
WBZ-TV has reached out to Collins’ workplace for remark. Collins has been defending a funding invoice for the Division of Homeland Safety that Democrats have been concentrating on within the wake of the deadly Alex Pretti capturing in Minneapolis.
On the Senate flooring Monday, Collins stated the vast majority of funding for the invoice goes to non-immigration and non-border safety operations.
“I hope we are able to come collectively in a constructive strategy to get this performed and to make sure that we don’t lurch right into a harmful and detrimental authorities shutdown,” she stated.
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