AFL-CIO Urges Support for Lafayette Park Hunger Strikers
Saturday, April 12, 2014(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
The AFL-CIO is offering logistical and public support to a group of hunger
strikers who, starting last week, have been protesting across from the White
House, in Lafayette Park. “The group, consisting of several families of
immigrants in detention centers or currently in detention proceedings, has come
to Washington under the auspices of several of our grassroots partners,
including NDLON (the National Day Laborers Organizing Network), the faith-based
national network PICO (People Improving Communities through Organizing), Dream
Action Coalition (DRM), and others, including United We Dream (UWD),” says the
AFL-CIO’s Jon Hiatt. “Through their hunger strike, the participants and
their supporters are calling for an end to the inhumane deportations that are tearing communities and families apart, and calling
on the Administration to grant administrative relief necessary to accomplish
this.” The AFL-CIO has offered the hunger strikers access to their facilities
and is urging donations of household items for the hunger strikers, who are in
temporary housing for the month: plates, cooking ware, inflatable beds, sheets,
chairs, etc. A bin for donated items is being set up in the AFL-CIO’s lobby
area (815 16th Street); if you have questions, contact Yanira Merino at Ymerino@aflcio.org or Kelly Rodriguez at Krodriguez@aflcio.org. “We are asking all of
you to welcome the hunger strikers when you see them, and to offer the same kind
of hospitality that you gave the Occupy Movement demonstrators who were based in
McPherson Square a couple of years ago,” Hiatt adds.
photos: (top right) 18-year-old hunger striker Cynthia
Diaz; photo by Elise Foley/HuffPost; (bottom left): Day 5 of the hunger
strike; courtesy NDLON Facebook page