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Minocqua Rally Friday To Protest Detention Camps

Pixabay.com Deedee86

Northwoods Progressives and others are gathering Friday night in Minocqua to protest the detention camps on the southwest U.S. border.

One of the Minocqua organizers, Tara Woolpy, says they're holding a candlelight vigil as part of Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps. The federal government has been holding immigrants from Central America in facilities at the border that some are calling inhumane...

"...To express our horror at the way immigrants are being treated at the facilities. The separation of children from their parents, there's still children have been separated from their parents this long, little ones, is appalling. People are sleeping on concrete floors with aluminum blankets. This is not who we want to be as a nation..."

At the southwest border, Border Patrol made around 593,000 apprehensions in part of last year and this year . In all of fiscal year 2018, it made close to 396,000 apprehensions.

Protests are planned across the nation and Woolpy details what protesters will do Friday..

"We're having (an event) in Minocqua where we usually do at Veteran's Park at Oneida and Front(streets). We'll have some readings, some speeches, and then we'll have a few minutes of a candlelight vigil as a way to feel like we're doing something. Feel like we're expressing ourselves..."

Woolpy says the public is the only group that can force government officials or politicians to change the situation. She says the more people voice their disapproval of the current plight of the refugees the more likely things will change.

The event is Friday at 8 p.m. at Veteran's Park in Minocqua. More information is at the Lights For Liberty or Northwoods Progressives websites.

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