Led by 1199 SEIU frontline healthcare workers, thousands of New Yorkers gathered around Union Square Park South on Friday to march in solidarity with Minnesota residents calling for a national “Day of Truth and Freedom” to protest ICE violence in their cities.
Using the bronze statue of George Washington at the base of the park as their backdrop, frontline healthcare workers, faith leaders and activists representing over 70 organizations rallied as part of actions happening coast-to-coast on Jan. 23.
The protest happened just hours before DHS agents in Minnesota shot yet another protester dead, sparking further outrage in the Twin Cities.
Protestors on Friday night carried signs in the shape of whistles with the words “Hands Off NYC” and “NO ICE” and banners that read “ICE out for good” and “Stop disappearing our neighbors.” Others brought hand-painted signs depicting victims of ICE enforcement and some signs for the elected officials whom the protestors are demanding action from.
Bishop Allen K. Shin of the Episcopal Diocese of New York urged attendees to march in solidarity and in the name of Renée Good, who was shot dead by an ICE agent earlier this month, and more than 40 Black and Brown migrants who have been killed and whose rights have been violated while in ICE custody.
“We are here because silence has become too costly. Silence is killing our neighbors, silence is killing our souls,” Shin said. “We reject cruelty from this government, we reject fear that divides this nation, we want justice, and we want it now.”
Vrinda Jagota, an advocacy organizer with Hindus for Human Rights, spoke about Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old asylum seeker detained by ICE this week and allegedly used as bait to entrap members of his family.
“What is happening is not normal,” Jagota said. “Honor and fight for the god in all of us and know that we are not free until we are all free.”
Jagota also invoked the killings of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez and Keith Porter Jr. at the hands of ICE agents.
Chants from protestors to abolish ICE and demand ICE stop terrorizing communities and neighbors rang out and echoed in the streets of the Flatiron District, where the march came to an end.
In a statement, 1199 SEIU said, “New Yorkers and other Americans are taking to the streets to make clear that we refuse to allow business as usual to continue while our communities are being terrorized. We are coming together with a loud voice to demand of ALL elected officials: ICE out, community safety in, restore our rights and fight back.”
