Meanwhile, in Washington state, two protesters have been convicted of disorderly conduct after they blockaded a highway to protest a rally by then-candidate Donald Trump in Lynden, Washington, in May 2016. Activists Josefina Mora and Thomas Kaplan have been sentenced to 10 days of labor on a jail’s work crew, after a judge threw out their necessity defense, in which they were arguing the civil disobedience was necessary to prevent the spread of fascism and hate groups, both locally and nationwide.
This is Thomas Kaplan and Josefina Mora at the protest back in May 2016.
Josefina Mora: “And so, right now, I have my arms in two tubes, each side. And on my right, there’s Nia. She is chained to a ladder. And on my left, there’s Thomas, and he’s also chained to a ladder.”
Thomas Kaplan: “It’s a community where white supremacy has been rampant since—since it’s been colonized. And we’re particularly drawing attention to Lynden, because here has been the center of Ku Klux Klan rallies and organizing for at least a hundred years, and right now it’s a hotbed for racism against farmworkers. We’re not going allow Donald Trump to come to our community and spread hate and try to encourage the detention or the terrorism towards people of color and undocumented persons.”