Hundreds of people gathered in Center City on Friday to protest the deployment of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to Minneapolis.
The protesters marched from Philadelphia’s City Hall to an ICE field office several blocks away. The Jan. 23 demonstration — organized by the Socialist Alternative party — comes after Minneapolis resident Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE officer over two weeks ago.
“Minnesota is facing down a nightmare — an invasion of ICE agents occupying their city, snatching up their neighbors, and terrorizing their communities,” one speaker — who identified herself as a public school teacher in Northeast Philadelphia — said during the protest.
On Jan. 23, hundreds of businesses closed in Minneapolis as workers engaged in a general strike to protest ICE.
“Renee Good was murdered just for showing up to observe ICE in an attempt to keep her immigrant neighbors safe,” the speaker added. “Her horrific murder was meant to scare people into compliance, to make them quiet and hide in their homes. In reality, it brought even more people out onto the street to fight back.”
The speaker called for ICE to be “completely abolished” and encouraged demonstrators to continue acting “in solidarity” with the people of Minnesota and “learning lessons from their struggle.”
The speaker alleged that immigration officers in Philadelphia put marginalized communities “under attack.”
“ICE is in northeast Philly now. They’re in Mayfair. They’re in Frankford. I teach working-class, immigrant, Black, and brown kids, and I’m scared for them,” she said. “My strength to protect them comes when I am organized with the 14,000 other members of my union in this city, with the parents and neighbors in our school communities.”
Peter Doherty — a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers — likened the current movement to the abolitionist movement in the United States.
“So here we are in the year 2026, and we have a new type of slave catcher, and they’re out here beating our neighbors, abducting our co-workers, as I’m sure you all saw, kidnapping children,” he said at the rally.
Doherty emphasized the movement’s fight against the “rising tide of fascism” under 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump’s administration.
After giving speeches at City Hall, protesters marched down Market Street toward the ICE field office on 8th Street.
The Philadelphia protest comes amid as a recent wave of nationwide anti-ICE action.
Anti-ICE protesters gathered outside the Free Library of Philadelphia on Saturday as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro spoke inside to promote the release of his memoir. The protesters demanded that Shapiro “stop working with ICE.”
On Jan. 24, a day after the “ICE Out for Good” demonstration in Philadelphia, Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a Customs and Border Patrol agent.
Senior reporter Alex Dash leads coverage of politics and can be reached at dash@thedp.com. At Penn, he studies history and political science. Follow him on X @AlexBDash.
