Dozens of protesters were reportedly arrested Sunday following a demonstration outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in New Jersey.
The more than 100 protesters were blocking the entrances to the facility, according to NJ.com.
{mosads}“Thirty-six out of approximately 100 protesters were detained yesterday and transported to police headquarters,” Kelly Martins, a spokeswoman for the city of Elizabeth, where the facility is located, told the news outlet.
“The protesters did not have a permit to protest, but the police gave them a courtesy since they were not violent and peacefully protesting,” she said, noting that they were only arrested once they began blocking the entrances.
Video recorded at the protest showed demonstrators holding signs reading “Never again means close the camps” and chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, racist ICE has got to go.”
The protesters were charged with obstruction of a public passage. They were issued city ordinance summonses to appear in court on a future date and released, Martins said.
The group “Never Again: Jews Against ICE Week Of Action” organized the protest and said many of the protesters arrested were Jewish.
“As Jews, we’ve been taught to never let anything like the Holocaust happen again,” the group wrote in a Facebook post.
Brandon Mond, a spokesman for the group, told the news outlet they had several more protests planned across the country.
Conditions at migrant border camps and detention facilities have come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks as lawmakers and lawyers have shed light on the situation.