New York • A woman protesting U.S. immigration policy climbed the Statue of Liberty’s base and forced the monument’s evacuation on the Fourth of July hours after several other demonstrators had hung a banner on the statue’s pedestal and had been arrested.
About 100 feet aboveground, the climber engaged in a four-hour standoff with police before two officers climbed up to the base and went over to her. With the dramatic scene unfolding on live television, she and the officers edged carefully around the rim of the statue’s robes toward a ladder, and she climbed down about 25 feet (8 meters) to the monument’s observation point and was taken into custody.