Street art depicting children locked in cages popped up around Brooklyn on June 12, offering a harrowing critique of the US Government’s handling of undocumented immigrants crossing America’s southern border.
One of the cages was installed on Ninth Street in Park Slope, just outside the YMCA frequented by six-foot five-inch presidential candidate Bill de Blasio, who strolled past the five-by-three foot instillation as he entered the gym just before 9 a.m.
The chain-link cells, which featured signs reading “#NoKidsInCages,” were meant to bring attention to the family-separation policy employed by federal immigration officials since April 2018, according to the group behind the street-art project.
“Guerrilla installations popped up early this morning in NYC as protest to the more than 3,000 children separated from their parents at the border,” said RAICES in a June 12 tweet. “This is not history. This is happening now. #NoKidsInCages is about the children. We cannot be a nation that separates families.
RAICES — Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services — is a Texas-based immigration legal services nonprofit organization, which provided an accompanying website to the 24 instillations, they used to blast the government’s policies cruel and unusual.
“They live in cages. Sleep on the floor. They cry out and are not comforted. They’ve spent an average of 154 days away from their parents,” the group said. “Six children have died.”
The immigration organization urged federal legislators to support the “Keep Families Together Act” — a proposal first introduced by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D–Red Hook) in January. The bill aims to end the family-separation policy, which was presented by President Donald Trump as a “zero-tolerance” policy to deter illegal border crossings.
Police officers fanned out across the city, dismantling the cages within hours.
