SAN ANTONIO, Texas — A much-touted protest of President Trump’s efforts to conduct mass deportation operations drew less than 75 attendees who gathered in front of the Federal Immigration Court Building on Tuesday. The crowd included members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) who organized the event in Texas’s second-largest city.
Despite having a population of nearly 1.5 million residents to draw from, Tuesday’s “Sick-of-ICE, Sick-of-Trump” protest began and ended in short order with little fanfare. Breitbart Texas observed the downtown San Antonio protest attended by a few people sporting the Palestinian Keffiyeh, several Christian ministers, and a small crowd that listened to speeches critical of the Trump administration’s efforts to arrest and deport illegal aliens.
Speakers equate ICE arrests to kidnappings, disappearances (Randy Clark/Breitbart Texas)
As reported by Breitbart Texas, the protest was one of many planned for Tuesday in major cities across the United States. The events are listed on the well-organized website address SickofICE.org.
SickOfICE.org
Drawing from the biblical story of Jericho, the group of about 70 protesters marched around the U.S. Immigration Court office in downtown San Antonio seven times. The group shouted anti-ICE chants to the beat of a marching drummer. An organizer announced to the crowd that the march was symbolic of the actions that caused the walls of Jericho to fall.
Liliana Padilla, a pastor for the United Methodist church, sang a hymn in Spanish as she stood in front of a memorial to the illegal aliens arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at the nearby immigration court. Padilla stood in front of the display at the foot of the PSL tent, draped in the Mexican flag.
Sick of Ice — Sick of Trump Protest (Randy Clark/Breitbart Texas)
One speaker told the crowd the arrests conducted by ICE were tantamount to kidnappings and disappearances. The speaker proclaimed, “These people come here, pleading their cases, instead to find themselves being kidnapped as they walk out those doors, sometimes in zip ties, sometimes not.”
The speaker told the crowd a bus is usually parked nearby to transport illegal aliens arrested at the courthouse to detention facilities but was not present on Tuesday at the time of the protest. “They must feel shame, cause they didn’t bring that bus out today, but it was here yesterday, and it took families yesterday, it took people yesterday, it took people who have been working hard their entire lives who have given up everything to come here,” the organizer groused.
Much like the “No Kings” protests held in June to denounce the Trump administration’s efforts to conduct mass deportations of illegal aliens, Tuesday’s “Sick-of-ICE, Sick-of-Trump” protest was hosted and organized by the San Antonio chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The PSL organization printed most of the anti-ICE signs carried at the protest.
PSL organizers also distributed flyers encouraging people to report the location of ICE enforcement activities in the city to assist illegal aliens in avoiding arrest. The flyers marked “Fight Back SA” offer advice to illegal aliens that includes not opening doors to ICE agents, not speaking to ICE agents, and advising arrestees to exercise their right to an attorney.
On the “SickOfICE.Org” website, the organizers liken the effort to carry out deportations by the Trump administration to a declaration of war, saying:
Trump’s vow to carry out “the largest domestic deportation operation in American History” is a declaration of war against all of us. It is not just an attack on our immigrant families, but all of our civil liberties, and all of the gains of the Civil Rights movement. We can’t leave the immigrant community to fight alone; all citizens have a duty to stand up to this assault.
Trump has already broken up thousands of immigrant families and violently kidnapped our neighbors. He has also tried to strip away our rights to free speech and due process.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Before his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @RandyClarkBBTX.
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