A gathering in Columbus was among the scores of protests leading up to President Trump’s abrupt reversal of his family separation policy today. The marchers crowded onto the sidewalk in front of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. Statehouse correspondent Jo Ingles reports.
Activists carried handmade signs and chanted in front of the LeVeque Tower,where immigrants are required to check in with immigration authorities.
Jan Phillips is one of several volunteers who have put up a table in front of the office in recent weeks, offering cookies, lemonade and legal information to those who go into the office. But she says this, on this day, that act of kindness has turned into an act of protest over what she’s been seeing.
“It is inhumane. It is immoral. And we need to stop this policy,” she said.
Ironically, the Columbus building that houses the ICE office is built on ground Congress donated to refugees in 1801 to compensate those who left their property in Canada to take up arms on behalf of the colonists.
