Protesters, including former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart, blocking bus from taking refugees
About 75 people, including former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart, gathered outside the facility in the afternoon just north of Riverfront Park to prevent a bus with the young men from departing to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.
Later, they deflated the bus' tires and blocked law enforcement from leaving in patrol cars on the opposite side of the building.
The fracas is arguably the most extreme local showing of resistance to President Donald Trump's sweeping immigration crackdowns since he took office for the second time in January.
Stuckart began sitting in front of the bus parked on Cataldo Avenue in front of the former Broadview Dairy Building about 2 p.m.
The demonstration was sparked by the Wednesday morning detainment of the two men, identified by Stuckart as 21-year-old Cesar Alexander Alvarez Perez, who is seeking asylum from Venezuela, and Joswar Slater Rodriguez Torres, a Colombian national also in his early twenties. The crowd began forming just before 2 p.m. following a post on social media from Stuckart in which he called on members of the community to join him in obstructing the bus bound for Tacoma.
Stuckart said he officially became the Venezuelan's legal guardian three weeks ago, and arrived with him and the man from Colombia for a scheduled "check-in" appointment at the Spokane facility this morning. The two were in the United States on work visas and had full-time employment at the Walmart in Airway Heights until Friday, when their "work permits were revoked," he said.
They're both hard workers who have been diligent about following the legal process and building better lives, Stuckart said.
"You can't help spend time with them and not understand just what great young men they are," Stuckart said. "They've done everything right, and they're escaping horrible situations, and then to have them come in for a checkup and be detained illegally is morally reprehensible."
For the first few hours, most of the demonstration was peaceful, aside from a masked person who covered the driver's side of the bus' windshield with a layer of white spray paint about a half hour into the demonstration.
More than a dozen protestors joined Stuckart in sitting in front of the doors to the bus, despite warnings from a pair of uniformed men who came out of the building earlier to warn the crowd that obstructing their pathway could lead to arrests and charges. Protesters also parked their vehicles in front and behind the bus.
"I don't want this bus to leave with my friends," Stuckart said. "And I told everybody I was down here, and if people wanted to join me, they could. It's not right. It's not morally right, what's happening."
The crowd includes several prominent politicians, activists and community leaders, including Spokane County Democratic Party Chair Naida Spencer; state Rep. Timm Orsmby; Spokane City Council candidate Sarah Dixit; union advocate and a former Democratic candidate for local, state and federal offices Ted Cummings; Thrive International Director Mark Finney and Latinos en Spokane Director Jennyfer Mesa.
Mesa said both of the young men are clients of Latinos en Spokane, but her presence Wednesday was to be there for her friends, not just her clients.
"They're good kids," she said, choking back tears. "They have been volunteering, they're doing the process and everything legally. I just don't understand why they're being detained."
Stuckart said the federal employees in the office denied him from accompanying Alvarez Perez during his appointment, and did not disclose why either young men were being detained. Stuckart estimated it took around seven minutes from when they went back for their appointment for federal officials to come out and inform him they were being detained.
"And each of them has a stack of legal paperwork at least 2 inches thick, with all their asylum paperwork and their guardianship paperwork, and they clearly didn't look at it," Stuckart said. "They just said, 'We're detaining them.'"
Stuckart said he started the legal guardianship process earlier this year after a call from Latinos en Spokane for local residents to assist local "vulnerable juveniles." He volunteers with the organization regularly and said he has greatly enjoyed getting to know Alvarez Perez, who's lived in Spokane for six months. He came by way of Miami, after walking through nine countries on his way from Venezuela and meeting Rodriguez Torres along the way. Stuckart said his main responsibility as a guardian is to provide mentorship.
"He's not living with us, and I'm not in charge of his finances or anything," Stuckart said.
There were about 100 people at the protest about 5 p.m., including about 15 blocking the bus. Stuckart was not in front of the bus at the time, but still at the protest.
Around 5:25 p.m., a group of roughly 150 ran around the back of the building to obstruct three unmarked police vehicles from leaving a fenced-in parking area abutting the public parking area for Riverfront Park. Protesters shouted "Shame" repeatedly, and about 10 in the front line near the front of the gated parking lot linked arms in front of the gate.
Around five law enforcement agents, faces covered by ski masks and sunglasses, began to push the human chain of demonstrators, their glasses and handmade signs scattering on the ground. Protestors and officers shoved each other in a mass of yelling and chanting for around a minute until the agents retreated into their parking lot and the gate closed.
Not long after, a handful of protesters hauled Lime scooters and park benches as a barricade to block vehicles from leaving from the gate.
Spokane police officers arrived shortly before 6:30 p.m.
A group of around 15 to 20 Spokane Police Department officers formed a sort of protective barrier for an exit on the Washington Street side of the building. They were carrying weapons to shoot less-lethal munitions, what appears to be tear gas canisters and large hip bags with unidentified materials inside.
Protesting is an intergenerational affair for Alicea Gonzalez, 27, who brought her 5-year-old son Javell and father, Adam Betancort, 46. She wore a Mexico T-shirt to the protest, and the pair brought flags, one of Mexico, the other half-Mexican, half-American.
The latter flag is representative of Betancourt and his identity, he said while holding the flapping fabric towards passing cars on the corner of Cataldo Ave and Washington Street, right outside the ICE facility.
"I'm American and I'm a Mexican," he said.
Though they don't know either of the men detained by ICE, they're familiar with their story; Gonzalez's maternal grandmother crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in the 1950s, floating across the river in a car tire, she said. Betancort's parents are also immigrants from Mexico.
"I appreciate that; I wouldn't have the life that I live without her," Gonzalez said. "So I'm just showing my support, letting people know that they have people out here that will stand behind them, and use their voices to speak up for them."
The family was not involved in the shoving at the gate between protestors and agents.
This report is developing and will be updated.
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