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Climate Activists Get Themselves Arrested In Front Of White House

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An environmentalist organization claims “dozens” of its activists were arrested by Secret Service in front of the White House Monday.

The Sunrise Movement, an organization focused on stopping climate change, brought its members outside the White House Monday demanding more from the infrastructure agreement Democratic President Joe Biden endorsed, according to Yahoo News.

“Whether we’re inside or outside the White House, Biden is going to hear our demands,” a description for the event said on their site.

Activists chanted “shut it down” as they made a barricade in front of an entrance to the White House, according to Yahoo News. The organization demanded Biden include funding for a “civilian climate corps,” which it says is a government jobs program to combat climate change.

“It’s a program organized through the Department of the Interior and Agriculture and aims to conserve and restore public lands and waters, bolster community resilience, increase reforestation, increase carbon sequestration in the agricultural sector, protect biodiversity, improve access to recreation, and address the changing climate,” the group said.

The Sunrise Movement didn’t respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.


White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday denied the group’s claim that the infrastructure bill failed to address climate change. “I would dispute the notion that it doesn’t do anything for climate, which some are arguing,” Psaki said in a press briefing.

Democrats New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman, and Missouri Rep. Cori Bush attended the protests.

“They(politicians) occupy our streets. They mass incarcerate us, but they leave us food insecure, in transportation deserts, and our buildings and schools falling apart. Fuck that,” Bowman said demonstrators, according to Yahoo News.

Sunrise Movement’s activists have been arrested at protests multiple times. They were arrested for demonstrating on Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s property on June 21, and for storming the Russell Senate Office Building in February 2019.

When Cortez was first elected into Congress, she joined protestors from the Sunrise Movement at Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to support a “Green New Deal” in November 2018.

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