The wackjobbery continues in Portland, as religious leaders invent a victim card and stage their own arrests while protesting at the I.C.E. building that had been in under siege for much of July. Stunts such as these are more theater than reality, as these pastors and rabbis attempt to gain public sympathy for their case while trying to make the I.C.E. officers look like big bullies. What these clergy members were actually doing was blocking cars from entering the parking lot of the federal building.
Federal officers arrested religious leaders on Tuesday morning during a protest at the U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Southwest Portland.
The leaders and other people of faith marched to the ICE facility to demand the release of more than 100 asylum seekers being held at a federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon.
Before the protest, the group said it planned to interrupt ICE operations if its demands weren’t met. At about 11 a.m., several members of the group started blocking the driveway to the ICE facility. About 30 minutes later, federal agents came out and put three religious leaders in handcuffs. ICE officials confirmed to KGW that the three individuals were arrested and charged with obstruction.
At ICE offices in Portland, driveway blocked. @KGWNews pic.twitter.com/vPm7LRN2Sm
— Tim Gordon (@TimGordonPDX) August 7, 2018
Federal agents arrest clergy. @KGWNews pic.twitter.com/tK9eEjqGl4
— Tim Gordon (@TimGordonPDX) August 7, 2018
One of the ones arrested was Reverend Michael Ellick, who was instrumental in staging the protests out front of the Sheridan federal prison in eastern Oregon.
Another arrestee is Rabbi Debra Kolodny, a bi-sexual female rabbi, who, among other stunts, protested out front of a Freedom Foundation fundraiser a couple years ago, blaming the organization for the Orlando nightclub massacre, proclaiming that “GOD IS GENDER-F***ING_QUEER”, and joined in a “SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!” chant just moments after telling the crowd to love thy neighbor.
This an intentionally strategy employed by the far left (one of the few things “employed” by the left). They will line up vulnerable people and arrange for those folks to be the ones arrested, as this gains their movement sympathy in the eyes of a naive public. Additionally, when it’s older folks who are more respected in the community who are getting arrested, they don’t have as much to lose as a 20-something who has to worry about a job, career, housing situation, and how mad mom and dad are going to get.
This strategy may have been devised by anarchist protester Lisa Fithian, seen here in this video from EAG news, organizing the “arrestables” for a protest in Chicago.
That tactic has spread, as other groups have been caught on video talking about similar methods of letting the older folks get arrested.
