“Lights for Liberty” vigil is scheduled to take place in Elizabeth
on Friday, July 12th

The rally is being held in solidarity with a national day of action to raise awareness about the conditions of “detention camps” in the United States.

ELIZABETH, NJ, July 12, 2019: The vigil in Elizabeth is one of the 500+ vigils staged by Lights for Liberty as part of a national day of protest against conditions inside camps where refugees are being detained at the country’s southern border. Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Concentration Camps, has representation in all 50 U.S. states and several other countries.

Lead organizer, Ron Rivers launched the Elizabeth vigil “to generate awareness and action against the for-profit detention camps here in our backyard. New Jersey residents are coming together to demand an end to the inhumane treatment of these already oppressed people.”

“We want the folks who turn out in Elizabeth to leave this vigil feeling educated and inspired to fight for immigration reform,” stated organizer Lacey Cotter Rzeszowski. “Our holistic group of speakers ranges from an elected County official to grassroots groups advancing immigrant justice. We have a Dreamer, an immigration attorney, and an American Dream story of an asylum-seeking refugee from Vietnam who is now the Executive Director of one of New Jersey’s largest and most influential a grassroots organizations.”

The vigil will take place at 7 p.m. at the Elizabeth Detention Center, a for-profit migrant detainee facility, located at 625 Evans Street, Elizabeth in Union County. The event will close with a candlelight vigil at 9:15 p.m. Participants should bring candles (preferably battery-operated), flashlights or glow sticks. After lighting the candles, participants will stand in silence.

Sponsors of the Elizabeth satellite event include Action Together New Jersey, Cosecha, First Friends, Make the Road, Piscataway Progressive Dems, as well as local resistance groups throughout the Union County and neighboring counties.

The Elizabeth Detention Center was recently the focus of national press when 36 members of #NeverAgainisnow were arrested for an act of civil disobedience kickstarting a series of protests across the nation likening the detainee camps to concentration camps echoing the sentiment of freshman Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.