Now there are news reports that the Trump administration’s policy of separating would-be immigrants from their children has been far more extensive and far more shocking than anyone suspected. Sources say that the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services reports that the family separations began in 2017, and that thousands more children were taken from their parents, more than the originally reported number of 2,000 children.
One person not surprised by the new revelations is Therese Patricia Okoumou, 45, the activist who scaled the Statute of Liberty, getting as far as the base, before a three-hour standoff with federal officers July 4, 2018. A naturalized citizen from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Okoumou explained to the AmNews that she wanted to make a statement about the way “we are treating children.”
In December 2018, she was found guilty in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York of the charges of disorderly conduct, trespassing and interfering with government agency functions. Okoumou has been ordered to appear before Magistrate Gabriel W. Gorenstein March 5, 2019 at 11 a.m. for sentencing.
“I’m really happy with the outcome because we are still talking about the children in these concentration camps,” Okoumou stated after her court appearance Dec. 20, 2018.
Jan. 21, Okoumou wrote in an email to the AmNews, “Instead of treating them with kindness [immigrant children], we show them in cages. So I go in the cage with them. I am on the right side of history. I do not regret my actions on the Fourth of July.”
Okoumou continued, “My fear is not the height of the Statue of Liberty. “My fear is those on the ground who have become complacent.”
Adding a message to those in power, she said, “Communities are apathetic because they don’t see you fighting for them. We are a society with norms when one group of people does harm to one in the community. People must rise up.
“We should not wait until Martin Luther King Day to express outrage at what is happening to the children. There must be a constant outcry. This is a humanitarian crisis made worse by the way the Trump administration is handling this issue.”
She reportedly stated in open court that she would do it again.
Okoumou said she wanted to re-emphasize the point that she had not planned to climb “Lady Liberty” when she was part of an anti-ICE protest sponsored by the organization Rise and Resist. “When I say that my moral values call for me to do something about stopping children still being placed in cages, I am serious,” Okoumou said. “I keep telling people on Twitter and Facebook that I am still here. Don’t wait until the day of my sentencing to do something. The children are still being caged. Do something now!