Woman Scales Statue of Liberty to Protest against the Strict Immigration Laws in U.S.

A woman scaled up the base of the Statue of Liberty on 4 July to protest the separation of migrant families. She was later taken into police custody after a three-hour standoff with the police. Details below.

The woman has been identified as Therese Patricia Okoumou who refused to leave the base of Statue of Liberty. She is a 44-year-old migrant from DR Congo. Okoumou took nearly three hours to cross the base of the statue, sometimes sitting between the folds of the statue’s dress or under Lady Liberty’s sandal. She walked back and forth under Lady Liberty’s sandal and removed a small flag or a banner. She declared that she wouldn’t come down till “all the children are released.” Okoumou was protesting against Trump’s zero-tolerance policy on immigration. 16 officers from the New York Police department’s Emergency Service Unit who are trained to perform some of the most dangerous rescues in the city took up the mission to rescue the lady.

One of the officers said that Okoumou wasn’t friendly at first and it took a while to build a rapport with her. She threatened to push the officers off the ladder initially and she mentioned something about the kids in Texas. "At first she was being a little combative, then she was willing to cooperate with us. She actually apologized to us for having to go up and get her”, Officer Glacken told reporters. The officers had to put a harness and rope around her neck and walked her up towards a place where a ladder was placed at the base of the statue. Initially, they built a rope rescue system to escort her down as they were not sure whether she would oblige to come down.

Okoumou was part of a group called Rise and Resist but according to the organizer of the Martin Joseph Quinn, her climbing was not part of the protest. "She climbed without our knowledge. It was not part of our action," Quinn said. Another organizer and board member of Rise and Resist Jay W Walker said "None of us know how she got up there”, however, Police believe there were other protestors who coerced her to get to the base of the statue. Rise and Resist is a group who were protesting at the base of the statue to abolish ICE which is an agency for identifying and removing immigrants who are undocumented.

While the operations were underway to rescue Okoumou, many tourists were asked to return back. Tourist Tiana Smith said that she was walking towards the statue on Wednesday when workers told everyone to turn back. "We got towards the ferry to ride back and we saw the SWAT team get off, and the police officers came with their harness and the helicopters, so we were like, yeah, we just need to go," she told CNN. According to a company representative, cruises that bring tourists to the statue consisted of around 3000 people were asked to return back. Therese Patricia Okoumou is currently under US custody and will be transported to a US Marshall’s Office in Manhattan.