At the 48 hour deadline for the “People’s Executive Order,” New Sanctuary Movement returned en masse to City Hall. We sent a delegation into City Hall to confer with Mayor Nutter. Nutter’s administration repeated that he still planned to re-start local deportations.
Upon hearing that, eight New Sanctuary Movement members (citizens, immigrants, and clergy) choose to risk arrest rather than allow Nutter to deport our communities. New Sanctuary Movement members Estela Hernandez, Mario Lopez, Carmen Guerrero, Lauren Ballester, Pastor Amy Yoder McGloughlin (pastor at Germantown Mennonite Church), NSM organizer Nicole Kligerman, teacher Tyler Brelje, and Beth Patel from the Philadelphia Student Union stood strong against the police violence and shut down City Hall because every day families are dragged out of their homes, workplaces, cars, and streets and deported away from their families.
The 8 members open the doors of City Hall and sat down in the entrance and exit, blocking traffic. The police immediately attacked the non-violent action, dragging and pushing our members out the door. One member, Carmen Guererro, injures her arm and is hospitalized. Nicole Kligerman, one of NSM’s organizers, is grabbed by the neck. Watch the video here.
The 8 people stayed blocking the entrance until City Hall closed, successfully stopping Mayor Nutter from changing the policy that day as he had intended!