Anti-ICE Protests Spread Nationwide After Minneapolis Shooting
Anti-ICE Protests Spread Nationwide
In Photos
Mounting outrage over an ICE agent’s killing of a woman in Minneapolis spilled into streets across the country on Saturday, as crowds of protesters mobilized against what they called the excesses of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.
The “Ice Out for Good” campaign held demonstrations in small towns and major cities, including some that have been central targets of President Trump’s immigration crackdown. The protests came three days after an ICE agent in Minneapolis shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen at the wheel of a car, during an encounter in South Minneapolis.
Almost immediately, conflicting interpretations of the killing — which was captured in video from several angles — divided the country along ideological lines. State leaders in Minnesota described the ICE agent’s action as an unjustifiable use of lethal force against a civilian who was trying to leave the scene. For their part, Trump administration officials claimed that Ms. Good was a left-wing domestic terrorist who tried to run over the ICE agent, and that the agent acted in self-defense.
In light of the killing in Minneapolis and another shooting in Portland, Ore., where Border Patrol agents shot and wounded two people in a car on Thursday, activist groups, including the organizers of the “No Kings” and “Hands Off” demonstrations last year, called for a weekend of “nationwide mobilization.”
“Renée Nicole Good and the Portland victims are just the most recent victims of ICE’s reign of terror,” one of the groups, the 50501 movement, said in a news release. “ICE has brutalized communities for decades, but its violence under the Trump regime has accelerated.”
The Trump administration has been mounting large enforcement operations in one city after another; in Minneapolis, the target has been primarily Somali immigrants. As has happened elsewhere, the federal agents descending on neighborhoods in Minneapolis have been met by protesters carrying cameras and whistles.
In Minneapolis, the public reaction to the killing of Ms. Good has been swift and angry. Law enforcement officers have used tear gas against protesters outside a federal building near the Minneapolis airport. Gov. Tim Walz, who has urged calm while denouncing the shooting in stark terms, has alerted National Guard troops in the state to be ready in case of unrest. And President Trump has dispatched more federal agents to the city.
By the weekend, demonstrations had spread to other cities.
Minneapolis
Shock and rage over the killing of Ms. Good have been particularly acute in Minneapolis, where a column of protesters stretched for blocks on Saturday afternoon as they walked from Powderhorn Park to Lake Street, which cuts through several immigrant neighborhoods in the city.
The protest began with a rally at the park earlier in the afternoon. Undeterred by the January chill, demonstrators chanted slogans welcoming immigrants and denouncing ICE.
“Minneapolis has gone through so much,” said Ben Person, 49, noting the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and the unrest that roiled the city after the murder of George Floyd. Now, he said, after Mr. Trump’s crackdown on the city’s Somali immigrants and the shooting of Ms. Good, “it feels like maybe we’re hitting a tipping point.”
Chief Brian O’Hara of the Minneapolis Police told reporters on Saturday that his department had canceled vacations and called in every sworn officer on the force to prepare for huge planned protests. Mayor Jacob Frey said most protests since Wednesday had been peaceful, though 29 people were arrested Friday night when a small breakaway group vandalized a hotel and refused orders to disperse.
Mayor Frey, who has castigated ICE’s conduct, called on protesters to keep the peace. “We will not counter Donald Trump’s chaos with our own brand of chaos in Minneapolis,” he said.
Portland, Ore.
Protesters gathered alongside the Willamette River in Portland with signs, lawn chairs, flags and frog hats to protest federal immigration actions and the recent shooting of a Venezuelan couple by Border Patrol agents in the city. Organizers led the crowd in “Abolish ICE” chants, and a marching band played. Later, the crowd marched southward toward downtown.
Celeste Dryer, 52, who teaches reading at a small school east of Portland in Fairview, Ore., said that her school had been directly affected by the immigration crackdown. “Inside the school I work at, we celebrate immigrants,” she said. “That’s a hard message to get across when what’s happening outside is so different.”
Kaia Wilson wore a homemade hat to the protest.
Houston
Demonstrators in downtown Houston gathered in solidarity in a general protest against the Trump administration.
San Antonio
Growing crowds of protesters gathered in downtown San Antonio in a plaza near the San Fernando Cathedral, City Hall and other government buildings.
From there, protesters began to march downtown under police escort, the crowd growing in size as it moved.
One attendee, 19-year-old Steven Amaro of San Antonio, said he was a first-time protester who wanted to stand up for what he thought was right.
“It’s a new year. People should be celebrating but people are already dying,” he said.
Omaha
In Omaha, demonstrators gathered on all four corners of 72nd and Dodge Streets, near the University of Nebraska’s Omaha campus, to protest immigration enforcement.
New York City
In Lower Manhattan, demonstrators gathered in front of ICE’s New York field office under a steady rain, many of them saying they had come out for the first time in response to Ms. Good’s death.
Leah Silverman, 20, a college student from Arizona, said she happened to be in New York for the weekend when she decided to join her first protest against ICE. She said she’d been deeply alarmed by Ms. Good’s death — a “blatant murder in the street” — and by how quickly the Trump administration had moved to establish its own narrative around the shooting.
“People are willing to ignore what their eyes see,” she said. “I’m here to say that I’m disappointed and angry with what I saw.”
Boston
Musicians played at a protest on Boston Common near the Massachusetts State House in Boston.
Washington, D.C.
Chants of “ICE out for Good!” and “Trump must go now!” echoed in front of the White House as protesters gathered Saturday in a driving rain. Some carried signs displaying Ms. Good’s likeness.
Rebecca Martin, a 46-year-old physician from Falls Church, Va., said she was motivated to brave the elements by ICE agents’ refusal to allow a bystander who identified himself as a physician to treat Ms. Good after the shooting.
“If someone has a medical need, I’m going to treat them,” she said, adding that she believed ICE’s treatment of Ms. Good was “inhumane.” “I think ICE has lost privileges to be working in public,” she said.
Seattle
Protesters lined a street in Seattle with signs opposing the Trump administration and its immigration crackdown.
Los Angeles
Hundreds of people gathered in Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday night to protest ICE and the shooting death of Ms. Good. A smaller contingent was on hand to demonstrate against U.S. military action in Venezuela.
Ruben Garcia, 64, a Los Angeles native, wore a Dodgers jersey and waved an upside-down American flag in a traditional signal of distress. He said he was there to protest Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, which he saw as an attack on Latinos.
“The bottom line is, we’re really angry,” Mr. Garcia said. “They shot a woman.”
Orlando Mayorquín, Dan Simmons, Darren Sands, Mark Bonamo, Aaron West, and Miranda Rodriguez contributed reporting.