Philly demonstrators block ICE garage at agency’s Center City headquarters
The protest was the latest in a string of anti-ICE demonstrations and vigils in the Philadelphia region, with another planned in Norristown on Tuesday evening
About 30 demonstrators blocked the garage doors at the Philadelphia ICE office Tuesday morning, saying they intended to stop agency vehicles from going to “terrorize” local residents.
Only one car attempted to leave, and Philadelphia police moved demonstrators aside so it could depart.
No one was arrested.
Organizers with No ICE Philly had pledged to block the garage until they were forcibly removed or arrested, but halted the protest after about two hours. They said that they had accomplished their goal, and that the bitterly cold weather was too harsh on demonstrators who are older or who have medical conditions.
The temperature was about 15 degrees when the protest began shortly before 8 a.m.
“All of us here have proven in our song and our prayer that we can slow down the machine of authoritarianism, of fascism, that we can delay the operations that will detain and kidnap and destroy our neighbors, our families, our community," said the Rev. Jay Bergen, a leader of No ICE Philly and pastor of the Germantown Mennonite Church.
The protest was the latest in a string of anti-ICE demonstrations and vigils in the Philadelphia region; another was planned in Norristown on Tuesday evening. In October, a No ICE Philly protest outside the agency headquarters erupted into physical confrontations with police, with several people knocked to the ground and four arrested.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not reply to a request for comment Tuesday.
The clergy-led protest was boosted by City Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke, who is a pastor of the Living Water United Church of Christ in Oxford Circle.
O’Rourke said that it was natural for him to join fellow clergy, that Tuesday’s action was part of a long tradition of faith leaders being at the forefront of the “struggle against oppression,” as led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others.
“We are a day after King’s day, and it’s important that we don’t just wax eloquent about the nice things that King said or the image that he’s been painted of now,” he said, “but we continue in that tradition of resisting the oppression as he saw it, we’re doing in our own time.”
The group locked arms and sang, offering prayers and songs of peace and affirmation.
The Rev. Hannah Capaldi, minister at the Unitarian Society of Germantown, noted that all around her were clergy of different faiths wearing collars, tallits, and stoles.
“We’re saying, listen, we have some level of moral authority in this city, and we’re trying to tell you where to look and what to pay attention to,” she said.
Capaldi hoped to plant “seeds of resistance” in the broader public, encouraging people to get involved.
“We need more people every day willing to do this,” she said, “to stand between the vehicles and the work that they’re doing to kidnap our neighbors.”