More than a dozen people who participated in a sit-in at the offices of the Governor of Florida (USA), Ron DeSantisto protest his policies and try to talk to him were arrested and indicted for having stayed without permission in a place after closing hours.
The Dream Defenders organization, convener of the protest, announced this Thursday via Twitter that the 14 detainees were released at dawn and, in addition to the charges, they were banned from entering the Florida Capitol for a year.
According to local media in the capital of Florida, Tallahassee, the 14 detainees last night were the ones who refused to leave the corridors that lead to the governor’s office in the Capitol.
Among the detainees there are members of organizations in favor of the “dreamers”, the beneficiaries of the DACA program, which grants immigration benefits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US as children.
All were charged with misdemeanor trespassing.
Dozens of protesters began the sit-in but when dozens of police officers arrived at the scene, only those 14 remained chanting in DeSantis’s office.
Gretl Plessinger, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, explained that “once the building closes, unless you have an office in the Capitol, you can’t be here.”
The 14 said they refused to leave until they had a meeting with the governor.
“TO DeSantis he likes meeting with his donors, the people who voted with him, his little friends, but he seems to not want to face people who don’t really like him,” said Nailah Summers-Polite, co-executive director of the organization Dream Defendants.
“Florida is on fire, and he’s going around the country and around the world while the legislators under his boot are passing some really damaging laws,” he said.
The Dream Defenders human rights group nearly a decade ago organized a month-long sit-in at the office of then-Governor and now Senator Rick Scott.
At the time, Scott rejected their demands for a special committee to review a law that allows you to shoot another person if the person with the gun feels threatened.
But Scott did meet with the protesters, according to the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper.
In the current session, which ends tomorrow, Friday, the Republican-dominated Florida Congress has approved a battery of controversial ultra-conservative laws promoted by DeSantis, who is preparing to announce that he will compete for his party’s presidential nomination in 2024. .
One of these laws, lacking only the governor’s signature, is one of the toughest in terms of immigration in the entire country and will enter into force on July 1.
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