A protest against US immigration policy forced an early closure of the Statue of Liberty on the country’s independence day yesterday, with a group unfurling a banner from the pedestal and a woman holding police at bay for hours after she climbed the base and sat by the statue’s robes.
The woman and at least a half-dozen demonstrators who displayed the banner were arrested, while the climb forced thousands of visitors to leave the iconic US symbol on the nation’s birthday.
About 30m aboveground, the woman engaged in a four-hour standoff with police before two officers climbed up to the base and went over to her. With the dramatic scene unfolding on live television, she and the officers edged carefully around the statue toward a ladder, and climbed down about 8m to the monument’s observation point, where she was taken into custody.
The woman, Therese Okoumou, told police that she was protesting the separation of immigrant children from parents who cross the US-Mexico border illegally, a federal official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The climber was among about 40 demonstrators who earlier unfurled a banner calling for abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said Jay Walker, an organizer with Rise and Resist, which arranged the demonstration.
The other demonstrators had no idea that Okoumou would make the ascent, Walker said, adding that it was not part of the planned protest.
“We don’t know whether she had this planned before she ever got to Liberty Island or whether it was a spur-of-the-moment decision,” Walker said.
Regardless, the publicity could help the group’s cause, he said.
“I feel really sorry for those visitors today” who had to leave or couldn’t come, US National Park Service spokesman Jerry Willis said. “People have the right to speak out. I don’t think they have the right to co-opt the Statue of Liberty to do it.”
Okoumou ascended from the observation point, Willis said, adding that visitors were forced to leave Liberty Island hours before its normal 6:15pm closing time.
Willis said federal regulations prohibit hanging banners from the monument.
Rise and Resist opposes US President Donald Trump’s administration, and advocates ending deportations and family separations at the border.
Under Trump’s zero-tolerance policy, the government has begun requiring border agents to arrest and prosecute anyone caught entering the country illegally. That resulted in more than 2,000 children being separated from their parents within six weeks this spring.
Under public pressure, Trump later halted his policy of taking children from their detained parents.
A federal judge in California late last month ordered the Trump administration to reunite the more than 2,000 children with their parents within 30 days.
“Abolish ICE” has become a rallying cry at protests around the country and for some Democratic officeholders seeking to boost their progressive credentials.
However, Trump last week said on Twitter that abolishing ICE would “never happen.”
The Statue of Liberty has long been a welcoming symbol for immigrants and refugees arriving in the US. It also has been a setting for protests and other actions that forced evacuations.
Last February, someone hung a banner reading “Refugees Welcome” from the observation deck. The sign was taken down about an hour after being discovered.
A year earlier, a West Virginia man was sentenced to time served after calling in a bomb threat that forced the evacuation of Liberty Island, sending 3,200 people on boats back to the neighborhood of Lower Manhattan and the state of New Jersey.
In 2000, 12 people protesting the US Navy’s use of the Puerto Rican Island of Vieques for bombing exercises were arrested after a man climbed out on the spires of the statue’s crown and attached flags and banners to it.
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