About 1,000 activists stopped traffic in Boston Tuesday night as they walked from the New England Holocaust Memorial to the Suffolk County House of Correction to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention of immigrants.

The action, organized by a group of young Jewish activists, was part of a national movement to protest immigration detention by drawing a comparison to the Holocaust. A similar demonstration in New Jersey led to 36 arrests outside an ICE facility in Elizabeth.

We will put our bodies on the line. We will disrupt ICE from doing business as usual. Because we, as Jews, understand that #NeverAgain does not only apply to us. Never Again means now. Never Again para nadie. pic.twitter.com/IhNOIYZtdB — Allison Abrams (@ayyybrams) July 3, 2019

The protests were organized under Never Again Action.

“As Jews, we’ve been taught to never let anything like the Holocaust happen again. Now, with children detained in unacceptable conditions, ICE raids targeting our communities, and people dying at the border while seeking safety in the U.S., we are seeing the signs of a mass atrocity. We refuse to wait and see what happens next,” organizers wrote on their website.

Eighteen people were arrested in Boston Tuesday night, according to The Boston Globe.

If you're reading this, I have just been arrested with 17 other Jews and allies outside of the ICE Detention Facility in Boston, protesting the US government's detention and dehumanizing abuse of immigrants in concentration camps at the border and around the country. pic.twitter.com/rB6U65yTQ4 — Jaclyn Friedman❄️ (@jaclynf) July 2, 2019

“When we grew up hearing the words ‘never again,’ it’s referring to a moment like this,” Michaela Caplan, 23, one of the organizers of the event told The Boston Globe. Caplan told the newspaper her grandmother survived Auschwitz, but she lost more than 30 family members in the Holocaust.

The protesters - who stopped traffic in the heart of Boston during rush hour - chanted “Never Again” and “close the camps,” according to video of the protest.

Earlier this week Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, called the camps along the United States border with Mexico “concentration camps.” Her assessment has drawn outrage - both from people opposed to the detention of asylum seekers and from Republican lawmakers who have argued the comparison is distasteful.

We are in front of ICE detention center in Boston and some of the detainees holding signs saying “thank you” and “i love you” from inside. This is heartbreaking! #NeverAgain #NeverAgainAction #NeverAgainMeans #CloseTheCamps #mapoli pic.twitter.com/5WihqOO45c — Beyza Burcak (@beyzaburcak) July 2, 2019

This was the second massive protest in Boston against the detention centers within the last week. On June 26 hundreds of Wayfair workers walked out on the job in protest after learning that the Boston-based company sold beds to a government contractor associated with a migrant detention center in Texas.

Attendees of Tuesday’s march held signs that read: “Resisting Tyrants Since Pharoah” and “Anne Frank Was Turned Away,” according to the Globe.