Woman Who Climbed Statue Of Liberty To Protest Trump’s Immigration Policy Convicted

Neetu Chandak on December 17, 2018

A woman who climbed the Statue of Liberty’s base July 4 to protest President Donald Trump’s immigration policy and claimed she couldn’t bear the thought of “children in cages” received her conviction Monday.

Judge Gabriel Gorenstein announced the decision after Therese Okoumou, 44, testified Monday. She was convicted of misdemeanor charges and could be in prison for up to 18 months, The Associated Press reported Monday.

Trump previously had a zero-tolerance policy that separated families trying to cross the border illegally, but he signed an executive order meant to detain illegal immigrant families together June 20.

Visitors to the statue had to be evacuated and Liberty Island was shut down as a result of Okoumou’s climb. She refused to come down from the base, and a prosecutor said if she had fallen, she was high enough up that she could have seriously injured herself or others.

The whole ordeal took around four hours, according to the AP.

Okoumou is an immigrant herself, originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She has lived in New York for at least a decade, according to the New York Daily News.

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