Published: 7/15/2019 9:39:59 PM
Modified: 7/15/2019 9:42:34 PM
HANOVER — Organizers of the Lights for Liberty rally that drew more than 400 people to the Dartmouth Green on Friday evening to protest the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants on the southern border said they have raised more than $3,000 to help asylum-seekers and undocumented immigrants, including migrant farmworkers.
The rally raised $1,204 for the Migrant Justice Bail Fund in Vermont; $761 for United Church of Christ NH bail bonds for immigrants; and $586 for RAICES, the Refugee and Immigration Center for Education and Legal Services, which is providing help in Texas, according to Sherry Merrick, the chairwoman of the refugee support team of the First Congregational Church of Thetford.
“I was very happy with the turnout. I think it says that there are many, many people in our community who are concerned about children being detained in inhumane conditions in these detention centers/prisons, under our name, with our tax dollars,” Merrick said. “We are damaging these children forever.”
Among the speakers at the rally was Meriden resident Kesaya Noda, whose parents, the late Lafayette and Mayme Noda, were American citizens but incarcerated in internment camps during World War II because they were of Japanese descent.
“We have to reclaim our language. And let us never let someone frame our lives separate from us. Nobody is ‘illegal,’ ” she said at the rally, according to a video provided by Merrick. “There is no such thing as an illegal person. It does not exist.”