Bearing Witness @ ICE

How one Massachusetts group is keeping its eyes on injustice

By Dawn Olcott

On a quiet side street right behind the Burlington Mall, immigrants are placed together in cells inside a featureless office building with no sign out front. People are detained here, sometimes for days, and sleep on a cold floor under Mylar blankets. There is one toilet per cell, under the watchful eye of a camera. There are no showers, no handwashing sinks in the cells, no windows, no soap, no food service facility, no menstrual products for women, no outdoor time, and no visitors.

Community activists are standing up to say this injustice is wrong.

Bearing Witness @ ICE

Bearing Witness @ ICE, a group committed to peaceful, nonviolent protest, holds standouts in front of the ICE Field Office at 1000 District Ave. in Burlington on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. They bring people together across political differences to show broad collective support for immigrant rights. To this end, signs focus only on the topic of ICE and immigrants. To effectively bear witness, participants are directed not to approach ICE agents or block cars or traffic.

How Bearing Witness @ ICE Got Started

The standout was started by a local couple who were shocked to learn about the ICE Field Office. In April, Jared and Laurie Berezin stood out by themselves with signs on the grass in front of the field office building. The following week, they invited friends, and five people came. They decided to invite more people, and Jared, who was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s interfaith approach, reached out to Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders around Burlington and Lexington. The next week, a rabbi and two ministers came. Longtime advocates for immigrant rights, they invited their congregants and more clergy, and word began to spread. Participation grew to about 60 over a few weeks.

At the June 14 No Kings Day rally in Maynard, Jared was an invited speaker. He asked attendees to join the Bearing Witness @ ICE standouts. The Acton Area Indivisible’s Turn Purple 2 Blue website picked up the calendar listing. Since then, multiple local Indivisible groups have included Bearing Witness @ ICE in their listings. By early July, attendance was up to 265.

Not Your Standard Standout

The current Bearing Witness gathering is a powerful expression of community action where people learn together about peaceful, nonviolent protest. A primary goal is to offer hope to those detained, so they see they are not alone — that not everyone in America agrees with ICE.

Along with Jared and Laurie, the standout relies on help from dedicated participants. The organizing is collective, with attendees bringing signs, water, marshals’ vests, audio equipment, American flags and other supplies to share. Several volunteers marshal each week.

One feature that makes this standout unique is a group welcome and orientation. It fosters camaraderie, letting participants learn how to protest peacefully and de-escalate any negative responses from passersby. Leaders provide an update on individual detainees and other information pertinent to the gathering.

When the standout begins, Jared and others read segments of the Constitution over their speaker system while facing the field office. In facing the facility, they are speaking both to standout participants, to people being brought in and detained inside, and to field office staff, many of whom are likely unaware of detainees’ legal rights.

At the end of each standout, the group walks up the street and back, occasionally singing or chanting. They pass other offices and businesses in the office park, pass people sitting outside local restaurants, and stand for a few minutes at a busy intersection before circling back and disbanding.

Has the Standout Made a Difference?

Positive outcomes are resulting from these standouts on several levels. Participants talk and learn from each other, often prompted by the orientation.

Jared and Laurie have been approached and thanked by former detainees, their family members, and lawyers. People call out across the parking lot saying, “Thank you” or “God bless you,” or they may give a thumbs up. Passersby from nearby businesses are also taking notice and stopping to thank people for standing out. Many locals were unaware of the ICE detention facility in their midst.

There is solidarity in larger numbers, and ICE agents have apparently noticed. Regular participants have seen a reduction in the incidence of ICE agents and others rolling down their vehicle windows to yell at them from the parking lot or while driving by. ICE agents often record while passing by in their unmarked vans and SUVs.

The group has gained the attention of local media. Newspapers, online publishers and Burlington Cable Access Television have covered the standouts.

More Is Happening

When the facility first opened in 2008, the town of Burlington received assurances — recently reaffirmed — that no one would be held there overnight. When Milford High School student Marcelo Gomes Da Silva’s recent five-day detention at the field office became headline news, the town paid attention. “We were lied to by the current duty officer,” said the Burlington Select Board chair. Following two recent meetings, it was announced that the office building was not zoned for a detention center and that the Select Board had submitted a demand for inspection of the facility to both ICE and property owner Robert Murray.

On June 26, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey led the entire Massachusetts congressional delegation in writing to ICE officials, pressing them on whether ICE has been violating agency standards. “We’re sounding the alarm,” Warren said. “ICE’s abuse of power has to end.” The lawmakers requested a congressional briefing in July and pushed for answers regarding the reportedly inhumane conditions at the Burlington Field Office. As of July 16, there had been no reply.

Information on standouts and resources compiled by Bearing Witness @ ICE.

Massachusetts residents and visitors are invited. Standouts are held outside the ICE Field Office in Burlington on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to show love and support for immigrants and to bear witness to the cruel and unconstitutional actions of our government. Regardless of your views on other political issues, if you support immigrants and their constitutional rights and are committed to nonviolence, you are welcome to join.

Inspired? We hope this will inspire others around the country to do the same in their communities where ICE is located. See How to Organize a Bearing Witness Standout in your area, and please share.

Dawn Olcott is a writer for Indivisible Mass Coalition’s IndivisiBlog, a member of Indivisible Acton Area, and a member of Concord Indivisible. This article first appeared on indivisible-ma.org.