Thousands of students, faculty and community members gathered at Library Mall on Friday as part of a nationwide shutdown, joining demonstrators across the country to protest recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) violence and the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.
Over two dozen Madison businesses closed in solidarity with the national shutdown, which called for “no school, no work, no shopping.”
The day of protests began with an “ICE out of our communities” rally held by United Faculty and Academic Staff (UFAS) at Library Mall, featuring speakers condemning ICE’s presence in American cities.
“Schools in Minneapolis and around the country are practicing lockdowns to keep the government employees — the people whose salaries we pay — to keep them out,” Leema Berland, a University of Wisconsin-Madison education professor, told the crowd. “Our kids do not feel safe in their schools.”
UFAS Co-president Barret Elward echoed this sentiment for workers.
“Since the ICE ‘campaign of terror’ began, both immigrant and non-immigrant workers have feared for their safety when going to work, being [there] and coming home. Union members and our families are being illegally detained at alarming rates,” Elward said in a speech. “ICE must leave Minnesota now. ICE must not come to Wisconsin.”
He also emphasized ending federal funding for ICE, while also calling for the agency to be investigated for human and constitutional rights violations, namely the First and Fourth Amendments.
Protesters shared their concerns about racial profiling regarding ICE detainments.
“With ICE, it’s as simple as an accent they hear from someone in a grocery store. Someone two shades darker than them, who they think are working jobs only immigrants work,” Qaitlyn Ross, BLK PWR COALITION Resource and Policy Coordinator, told The Daily Cardinal.
Other attendees expressed surveillance concerns amid increased immigration crackdowns.
UW-Madison research engineer Dan Fitch wore a large-scale Flock Safety camera on his back, which he made using paper-mache and pipettes from his lab. He told the Cardinal he’s concerned about ICE’s indirect access to mass surveillance, like the Flock Safety cameras, along with software company Palentir’s facial recognition software and ability to track individuals from protests back to their work and home through artificial intelligence and data mining.
“I'm really worried about international students, others here on visas, protesters and other people getting caught up by [this] mass surveillance,” he told the Cardinal, saying it’s a “huge overreach.”
Although ICE agents haven’t been on the UW-Madison campus, the rally’s organizers had water jugs readily available after witnessing agents spray protestors across major cities with chemical irritants.
Following the UFAS rally, Madison Socialist Alternative hosted an “ICE OUT” solidarity walkout, rally and march from Library Mall to the state Capitol, which drew a large crowd filled with protest signs, anti-ICE chants and speakers.
On the Capitol steps, Madison Socialist Alternative member Rosemary Wonnell called for the agents responsible for the deaths of Alex Pretti, Renée Nicole Good, Keith Porter and others who have died in ICE custody to take accountability for their actions. Additionally, leaders took the opportunity to critique capitalism and the Democratic Party.
“This is a movement that recognizes that neither political party is standing for what we need to do right now,” Halsey Hazzard, co-chair of Madison Area Democratic Socialists of America, told the Cardinal. “We need to build a society that works for everybody, not just the wealthy few who control how society works. Our society needs to be run by the people who make it run.”
UW-Madison engineering professor Donald Stone held a sign criticizing the agents’ violations of the right to peacefully protest.
“The government is ruining their case for making our society more peaceful. They’re the ones who are creating violence. I’m here for you guys; the students, the younger people,” he told the Cardinal.
About a dozen local unions and organizations met Saturday to plan further resistance and mobilization to keep ICE out of Madison, organizer Mason Paccione said. Additionally, Madison Socialist Alternative said in an Instagram post that the “ICE OUT” rally is just one event leading up to a statewide general strike on May 1.
