(Dilley) A peaceful demonstration organized in Texas for the release of a five-year-old child detained by the American border police was dispersed on Wednesday with tear gas by the police, AFP noted.
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About a hundred people gathered outside a detention center for migrant families in Dilley, in the southern United States, where a five-year-old Ecuadorian boy had recently been taken with his father.
PHOTO ERIC GAY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Protesters gather outside a detention center for migrant families in Dilley, Texas.
The arrest of Liam Conejo Ramos on January 20 in Minneapolis had moved beyond the United States, in particular because of a photo showing the little boy, hat with rabbit ears on his head and schoolbag on his back, arrested by an agent dressed in black, visibly frightened.
PHOTO COURTESY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Liam Conejo Ramos was arrested on January 20.
American justice has since blocked the expulsion of the little boy and his father.
“ICE (the American immigration police, editor’s note) terrorizes and criminalizes children” or even “Abolish ICE” appeared on signs brandished Wednesday in Dilley by demonstrators opposed to the administration of Donald Trump, who has made the fight against immigration a priority of his second term.
PHOTO ANTRANIK TAVITIAN, REUTERS
Texas State Police in riot gear
After ordering the crowd to move back, riot police dispatched to the scene fired tear gas and arrested at least two people, according to an AFP journalist.
Protesters suffered eye irritation and persistent coughing.
An AFP videographer was also affected by the gas.
“Where I live, people are afraid. (…) I know people who have been arrested, who are American citizens, who have been persecuted,” confided James Castillo, an 18-year-old student living in Houston, a large Democratic Texan city.
PHOTO ANTRANIK TAVITIAN, REUTERS
About a hundred people participated in the march on Wednesday.
Democratic elected official Christina Morales, present at the demonstration, called for the dismissal of the Minister of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, responsible for implementing the administration’s anti-migrant policies.
“We want Kristi Noem impeached. We want the US Senate to stop funding ICE (…) They are killing people and we will not tolerate it,” she said.
In Minneapolis, two 37-year-old protesters, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, were shot and killed in January, one by border police and the other by immigration police, within weeks of each other. Their deaths sparked a wave of indignation across the country.
