Activists targeted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s home Friday morning, protesting her continued support of President Trump’s family separation policy for immigrants detained at the U.S.-Mexico border, about which Nielsen has repeatedly lied to the public.
The crowd of protesters blared audio published by ProPublica earlier in the week, which featured nearly a dozen children crying for their parents inside an immigrant detention center. Many held signs calling Nielsen a “Child Snatcher” and chanted “No justice, no sleep!” and “Free the children!”
Protestors are outside of DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s Alexandria townhouse, playing audio of the detained children. She appears to be still be home. pic.twitter.com/akIcxOcM3q
— Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) June 22, 2018
@CASAinAction @maddow and other advocates protest in front of Sec. Nielsen’s residence in Va. #wecaredoyou #FamiliesBelongTogther pic.twitter.com/u1HogJf8Jm
— CASA in Action (@CASAinAction) June 22, 2018
Around 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time, Nielsen left her home out the rear exit, where a few other protesters were waiting. They shouted, “Shame!” and “You belong in the Hague! You’re a modern-day Nazi” as she drove off.
RawStory notes that neighbors peered out their windows, but nobody called the police to report a disturbance.
Friday’s protest follows an incident Tuesday night in which Nielsen was confronted by protesters while eating dinner at a Mexican restaurant. “If kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace,” the protesters shouted, with several expressing gall that she would eat at a Mexican restaurant — of all places — after justifying the separation of families at the Mexican border.
In the end, the protesters chased Nielsen out of the restaurant.
Part one of a video of @mdc_dsa @DC_IWW and others shouting DHS Secretary Nielsen out of a restaurant. She doesn’t need to be kidnapping #immigrantchildren to deserve this treatment. Don’t give the regime a moment of rest. #KeepFamilesTogether pic.twitter.com/B3RfraOk1E
— Smash Racism DC (@SmashRacismDC) June 20, 2018
Over the course of the week, several Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Tammy Duckworth (IL), Kamala Harris (CA), Mazie Hirono (HI), and Jeff Merkley (OR), have called for Nielsen to resign over the child separation policy.
Nielsen, by contrast, has been basking in the praise she’s received from Trump over her enforcement of the practice.
White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that prompted the family separations, was also confronted at a Mexican restaurant Sunday night by a group of angry protesters. “Hey look guys, whoever thought we’d be in a restaurant with a real-life fascist begging [for] money for new cages?” one of the protesters shouted.
Conservatives, meanwhile, have appeared more upset by the protests than the administration’s policy of separating young children and infants from their families.
I thought after #metoo America had solved sexism, and then I see angry socialist mobs literally trying to destroy every waking moment of Kirstjen Nielsen's (and somehow only her!) life.
So sick of leftist sexism, leftist white supremacy, leftist authoritarianism.
— Frances Martel (@francesmartel) June 22, 2018
Disorderly conduct. Obstructing pedestrians and vehicles, harassing Nielsen and her neighbors.
Where is Alexandria PD?
The 1st Amendment doesn’t protect against that. https://t.co/W9ArATVaT7
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) June 22, 2018
Nielsen has not publicly commented about the protests. A DHS spokesman described her dinner at the Mexican restaurant earlier in the week as a “work dinner” and claimed in a statement that “the secretary and her staff heard from a small group of protesters who share her concern with our current immigration laws that have created a crisis on our southern border.”