Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., warned her supporters late Wednesday not to confront a group of armed protesters that are expected to demonstrate outside of her Los Angeles office.
“I have been notified that the Oath Keepers, an antigovernment militia that has staged armed protests in cities across the country, is planning to protest my district office in Los Angeles tomorrow afternoon,” Waters said in a statement Wednesday.
Waters says the Oath Keepers are known for engaging in violent behavior, and she warned her supporters not to be “baited” into confronting them.
“I am requesting those individuals and groups planning a counter-protest to not be baited into confronting the Oath Keepers with any demonstrations in opposition,” Waters said in her post to Facebook. “Such an occurrence would only exacerbate tensions and increase the potential for conflict.”
The Oath Keepers describe themselves as a “non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to ‘defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.’”
The group said in its call to action for protests outside Waters’ office set for Thursday that it is the launch of an ongoing protest that could persist for several weeks.
“This is both a protest against Maxine Waters’ incitement of terrorism, and a stand FOR ICE and the Border Patrol, as they enforce the perfectly constitutional immigration and naturalization laws of this nation,” the Oath Keepers said.
Waters is one of the Democratic politicians who has called for the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the wake of Trump’s zero tolerance policy on illegal immigration. She also called for people to continue confronting Trump administration officials in public spaces to let them know they are “not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
