Friday, May 21, 2010

First Nations Occupation of Arizona Border Patrol Headquarters (Updated)


Breaking from Occupy California:

"Reports are coming in that the Border Patrol Headquarters at the Davis Monthan Air Force Base has been occupied and locked-down as of 1:15pm today by 16 members of a First Nations Indigenous Peoples’ group in opposition to SB 1070 and HB 2281."

For more immediate details and a press release, go to the link above. If you have updates, please place them in the comments.

UPDATE AT 7:30 PM CST: The protestors have been removed, cited for trespass, and released.

KVOA of Tucson reported the number of those actually chaining themselves in the Border Patrol headquarters as 6-8, with 15-20 additional protestors at the scene. The photograph below from an update at Occupy California seems to corroborate those numbers.



UPDATE 22 May 2010: The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA), an international organization, is meeting in La Paloma, Arizona this weekend with 700 attendees. At the same time yesterday, a protest of about 100 people was held in Tucson against SB 1070 and HB 2281. Local KVOA footage below. Note the white supremacist interviewed by the news crew for "balance" who states "Learn the language and assimulate (sic)". What language would that be, O’odham or Cocopah? Clearly it's not English for him.



And correction to the news report via Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: Please note that while NAISA appears to be taking credit for organizing and attending the 5/21 rally, they DID NOT organize it. A few of their members did go to the rally, and then apparently headed back to the Westin La Paloma. The rally and related events were organized by Indigenous activists, scholars, and allies.