76 anti-ICE protesters arrested during a sit-in at a Microsoft store in New York



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NEW YORK – CNN (CNN) – 76 protesters were arrested on Saturday afternoon for blocking traffic in Manhattan, a spokesman for the New York Police Department said.

Protesters staged a sit-in at Fifth Avenue's Microsoft store to ask the technology company to ban US immigration and customs authorities (ICE) from using their technology, according to a press release issued by the coalition "Close the Camps NYC". organized the event.

"As members of this company, it is our responsibility to hold US companies to account," said Beatriz Lozano, an organizer of Close the Camps NYC. "By being complicit in their actions, we are complicit in the attacks on the Latinx community and the racist torture and trauma inflicted on them, and we have the power to put an end to this cruelty."

In the videos posted on Twitter, protesters could be seen in front of the Microsoft store holding placards and chanting "This is the price to pay for business with ICE".

The NYPD spokesman said 50 women and 26 men were arrested.

"We are grateful to the NYPD for its help with the protesters in our Fifth Avenue store, we have closed the store for the rest of the day and look forward to opening soon," said a spokesman. word of Microsoft in a statement. at CNN.

The spokesperson also sent a

Statement by Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, in June

in which he discusses his point of view on immigration bills and how immigrant children need protection.

"Microsoft is a society of immigrants belonging to a nation of immigrants," reads Smith's statement. He also wrote that Microsoft is "something that looks like" the United Nations Software "".

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also wrote his reflections on immigration in a

June article on LinkedIn.

"I want to be clear: Microsoft is not working with the US government on any project related to the separation of children from their families at the border," Nadella wrote. "Our current collaboration with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in the United States supports legacy workloads for mail, calendar, messaging, and document management."

Last month, 100 people were arrested while the same coalition

organized a protest against ICE

on Manhattan's West Side Highway, temporarily closing all traffic lanes.

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