About one hundred people took to the plaza near 26 Federal Plaza, where masked ICE agents have seized numerous immigrants attending court-ordered hearings over the past year, each with their own unique message.
One woman held up a sign reading “Somewhere in an attic, a little girl is writing about ICE,” drawing parallels between Anne Frank’s treatment at the hands of the Nazis and how immigrants are pulled off the streets in Trump’s deportation machine. A man stood amidst a sea of picket signs wearing a t-shirt depicting ICE agents taking Jesus Christ into custody. All the while, several individuals held up one letter each, and when placed together, the words read “F**k ICE.”
“We aren’t here just because we want to be, but because we must be here. We must be in the streets fighting for what’s right,” said Kate Gonzales of the People’s Forum, a working-class advocacy group. “Our rage brings us here.”
Much of the rage stemmed from the fatal shootings of Joan Sebastian Guerrero, who was shot to death on July 13 in Biddeford, ME, while Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed in Houston on July 7.
The protest occurred hours after yet another ICE-related death in Florida — this time, a 28-year-old man fleeing agents was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer driver.
Demonstrations have cropped up across the country in recent days, calling for an end to the bloodshed and demanding that the government pull back on the immigration enforcement practices.
As a result of these incidents, national outlets reported that ICE agents across the country had been informed via internal memo that they could no longer perform traffic stops until further notice. President Trump appeared to countermand that directive through a social media post on Wednesday morning, according to the Associated Press.
At Tuesday’s demonstration, protesters demanded the agency’s complete abolition.
“These tragedies reflect an immigration enforcement system that continues to put lives at risk, put families at risk, and communities at risk,” Erik Villalobos of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network said. “The reality is that we’re all at risk. This is an outright target against immigrant communities, against people of color, against working-class people. We need to make that known.”
The protesters marched around 26 Federal Plaza before returning to Foley Square.
