In trouble with the law and proud of it. Susan Sarandon was arrested while protesting family separation as a result of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.
Arrested. Stay strong. Keep fighting. #WomenDisobey
— Susan Sarandon (@SusanSarandon) June 28, 2018
“Arrested. Stay strong. Keep fighting. #WomenDisobey,” the Thelma & Louise actress, 71, tweeted on Thursday, June 28.
Sarandon encouraged others, including her critics, to join her and the other protesters throughout the day. “If Sarandon is in then I am absolutely out,” one Twitter user wrote. “WTH are you thinking @womensmarch? You might as well invite Jill Stein too.”
The Feud star replied: “Hope you stay ‘in’ regardless of whether or not I’m here. Need all our voices to demand an end to family detention & separation and ICE. Bigger than me or u. #WomenDisobey.”
The protest, organized by the Women’s March and the Center for Popular Democracy, took place outside the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. and culminated in a sit-in at the Hart Senate Office building. Women gathered to protest the migrant child crisis, which has separated more than 2,300 minors from their parents because of Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy. The initiative, introduced in April, calls for the Justice Department to criminally prosecute those trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
“630 women in foil blankets are being arrested in Hart Office building now as they chant ‘Abolish ICE’ and demand an end to family detention,” the Women’s March account tweeted on Thursday. Capitol Police confirmed in a statement to DCist that roughly 575 people were charged with unlawfully demonstrating. They were processed on site and released.
Sarandon was resolute even after her arrest, tweeting: “Powerful, beautiful action with hundreds of women saying we demand the reunification of families separated by immoral ICE policy. This is what Democracy looks like.”
