WASHINGTON – Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison and seven other members of Congress were arrested by U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday during a boisterous rally on the National Mall to press for legislative action on immigration reform.
Ellison, joined by civil rights legend John Lewis and other House Democrats, was marched in plastic cuffs to a police van, where officers inspected his pockets before he was taken away to be booked for "crowding, obstructing and incommoding."
Police said about 200 people — including several Minnesotans — were arrested as protesters blocked a street that crosses the Mall between the Capitol and the building's reflecting pool, where they were met by a phalanx of police.
The rally culminated a wave of protests nationwide — including in Minneapolis — aimed at putting immigration reform back on the agenda amid a government shutdown prompted by partisan brinkmanship over the federal budget, health reform and the debt limit.
Ellison said after his release that the move was an act of civil disobedience designed to urge Congress to pass legislation that would allow the nation's undocumented immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship.
"Part of my job is to try to draw attention to appalling conditions that Americans are going through, but that for me doing something dramatic may allow a critically important issue to languish," he said. "Sending out a news release I didn't think would work."
For Ellison, it was his second arrest during four terms in Congress. He was arrested in April 2009 in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington during a rally to protest the expulsion of aid groups in Darfur.
Some, including Fifth Congressional District GOP Chairwoman Nancy LaRoche, called it an act of "showboating" in the midst of the government shutdown impasse. "This is a distraction from what now is an emergency," she said.
