Photo: Shari Small/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — The Service Employees International Union Local 509 held a rally on City Hall Plaza on Monday.
The rally was in protest of last week's Los Angeles ICE arrest of Southern California SEIU President David Huerta.
President of Local 509 David Foley spoke to a crowd of hundreds, saying that the SEIU stands in solidarity with Huerta.
“To demand an end to the ICE raids, freeing our brother David Huerta, and to free all our brothers and siblings that have been torn from their homes,” Foley said. “Our bodies in the streets and on the line is not a violent mob, it represents workers standing up for our rights.”
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Cari Medina with Local 1199 was also at the rally, where she emphasized the importance of pushing back against these ICE raids.
“We have workers that are immigrants, and they need to feel safe and know that we are standing up with them and making sure that we’re doing our best to ask these ICE raids to be discounted,” Medina said. “We actually demand that these stop.”
Along with union workers, many community members also participated in the rally and showed their support.
“I think it's important that everyone, especially white people like myself with citizenship in the U.S., that we have to lay our lives down for those being ripped from their families,” one protester said. “It’s not American.”
Huerta has since been released from custody on a $50,000 bond.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Shari Small (@ShariSmallNews) reports.