500 people trek 280 miles to ICE detention center during Solidarity Walk for Immigrant Justice

DOVER, NH — Members of the Granite State Organizing Project and allied groups from four other New England states converged on the Strafford County Detention Center on Saturday, August 24  to spotlight “the moral crisis we face as our country targets and expels immigrant families.”

The group of more than 500 people walked, marched and even biked, a combined 280 miles from Concord, NH; Boston, MA; Montpelier, VT and Kittery, ME to Dover, where ICE uses the Strafford County jail as a detention center for people it intends to deport.

• The Concord Walk  kicked off Wednesday, August 21 at 9 a.m. with an interfaith prayer service at South Church Concord
• The Boston Walk kicked off with a rally at the JFK Federal Building in Boston at 10 a.m. on Monday, August 19
• The Montpelier pilgrimage kicked off Wednesday August 21 in front of City Hall
• The Kittery pilgrimage kicked off on Saturday, August 24 from First Parish Federated Church in South Berwick.
• All marchers met up at the Strafford County Detention Center in Dover on Saturday, August 24  for an interfaith service of lamentation and hope

The group shared their grief in solidarity over the deaths of migrant children and their families.  These deaths and family separations policies are a betrayal of the values our nation claims to embody, said Sarah Jane Knoy, Executive Director of the GSOP and convener of the NH immigrant Solidarity Network.

“As we head toward the 2020 Presidential Election, there’s no better time than now to use this act of solidarity as a call to action. By putting our bodies in motion, we are sending a very clear demand to our nation’s leaders —  Presidential candidates and our Members of Congress —  a demand that they protect immigrant families and enact humane immigration policies,” said Eva Castillo, vice president of the Granite State Organizing Project, a co-sponsor of the Solidarity Walk. “A demand that they end the detention and deportation machine by cutting funding for ICE and CBP and reinvesting this money into an agenda rooted in the power of love and community building.”