Siuli Gogwilt (left) and Richard Green (middle) meditating with Verne Zimmer (right) at Foley
Square. (Credit: Hannah Smith)
Days after an Ecuadorian woman made national headlines after a federal immigration officer violently pushed her to the floor at an immigration courthouse in Manhattan, five New Yorkers sat across from the New York County Supreme Court and meditated.
It was, they said, a protest against what they regard as violence and immigration injustice across the United States as a result of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions.
“It’s wrong to do this sh-t in America when we have all these laws and safeguards in the Constitution,” meditator Jim Gordon said in reference to the shoved Ecuadorian woman.
The group that organized the session, Mindful Rebels for Immigration Support, meets in Foley Square at Thomas Paine Park every Thursday to nonviolently protest, meditate in silence for 20-minute stretches and offer comfort to people leaving the courthouse. The group has more than 50 members.
“I want to take the word ‘fight’ out of my vocabulary for resistance. I want to ‘work’ together with people in a mindful way,” said Richard Green, who goes by Einstein and is a regularly participating member.
Richard Green (Einstein) informs a passerby of the Mindful Rebel’s mission. (Credit: Hannah Smith)
One of the Mindful Rebels’ demands, according to their website, is adequate due process for vulnerable and Indigenous communities, and more reparations led by Black, Indigenous, people of color and low-income communities.
“We have to stand together, united and in solidarity,” said Mar Kelly, an organizer for Mindful Rebels. “The government is picking people off the street and not giving people due process.”
According to Gordon, the group draws on the nonviolent tactics of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They also follow Thích Nhất Hạnh’s tradition of engaged Buddhism, which applies mindfulness, compassion, and nonviolence to social, political and environmental issues.
“I’ve experienced being thrown down to the ground in a DA’s office by an armed police officer just for being there. It was determined to be an unjust arrest. I did not even raise my voice,” said Verne Zimmer, a Mindful Rebel member.
“It stays with you, being thrown down by an armed person. I can no longer raise my voice,” she said in a near-whisper.
The Rebels began protesting in 2018 as a subgroup of Extinction Rebellion, a global climate-activism movement originating in the United Kingdom.
Extinction Rebellion especially gained traction after climate activist Greta Thunberg marched with them last year to Farnborough Airport to protest the elite’s use of polluting private jets.
Although Extinction Rebellion started out as a climate-based activism group, subgroups like the Mindful Rebels — established in New York in late 2018 — came about from the overlap of systemic struggles.
Mindful Rebels frequently held signs in silence at Chase Bank and Citibank, protesting the banks’ funding of fossil fuel industries, according to member Dancing Leaf. Dancing Leaf said they were recently “booted” from the bank lobbies.
After a rise in assaults on immigrants by ICE, Dancing Leaf said that the group felt they needed to shift their focus to supporting immigrants.
“People started to get abducted, and we got together and had a meeting where we all agreed that it was important to support the stop of this aggression against the migrants and try to help support court watchers,” Dancing Leaf said.
At Foley Square, Dancing Leaf said, there has been no hassle from authorities. “Some of the police are very supportive and friendly.”
For Gordon, the transition from climate-based activism to immigration-related activism was “seamless.”
“Unfortunately, this is all one fight; climate action and immigration justice are not separate battles,” he said. “To fight against the injustice of immigration is the other side of the coin to fighting climate injustice.”
Dancing Leaf explained that some people migrate in response to rising seas, extreme droughts, storms and other climate-related impacts.
“Why are so many people coming to America? [Some] people can’t grow food anymore because the climate is so unpredictable that their crops are failing,” she said.
She continued, “Everything is migrating because life wants to live.”
The Mindful Rebels will continue to gather in Foley Square at Thomas Paine Park every Thursday from 1 to 2 p.m. and again at 4:30 p.m.
“It’s terrible what’s happening ‘in the name of this country.’ I say: ‘not in my name.’ I feel powerfully about that,” Dancing Leaf said.
About the author(s)
Hannah Smith is a student at the Columbia Journalism School.