A weekend of protest, power, and persistence
The past five days have been filled with protests against ICE and CBP violence and lawlessness.
Friday
On Friday, Minneapolis—where immigration agents have been occupying the area with thousands of troops, snatching people and gassing schools—had a general strike. Here in San Francisco, SF Labor organized a solidarity event here on Friday with a couple thousand people in attendance, starting from the Target store at 4th and Mission—Target being a Minnesota corporation that was already under ongoing pressure for having abandoned DEI policies when Trump took office, and now faces further heat for accommodating ICE at their stores in Minneapolis.
Scene at the start of the march on Friday.
Photo credit: ProBonoPhoto.org/Nate Love
Then, on Saturday, Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis brutally killed Alex Pretti, a registered nurse and ICE observer, shortly after he had intervened to help a woman who had been shoved to the ground and pepper sprayed.
Saturday
Pretti’s murder exacerbated an already tense environment, and the protests have continued since then, with protests on Saturday and Sunday and multiple candlelight vigils on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Similar vigils were held around the Bay Area and throughout the country.
Our Trump Regime Takedown, which takes place every Saturday, proceeded as planned. We handed out “ICE Out for Good” window signs, made noise, and promoted other current and upcoming actions. The protest on January 10, following Renee Good’s murder, was the biggest in months, but this past Saturday’s would be a close second.
A crowd protests the Trump administration outside the Tesla showroom in San Francisco on Saturday, January 10. (Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle)
Saturday evening, PSL (Party for Socialism and Liberation) organized another protest in response to Pretti’s killing. Our own Anna K spoke and gave attendees tips on what to do: Observe — Record — Abolish!
Saturday’s protest, organized by PSL, started at Embarcadero Plaza before marching to the ICE building at 630 Sansome.
Photo credit: ProBonoPhoto.org/Kelly Moran
Sunday
We closed out the weekend with a candlelight vigil on Sunday. Pretti was a registered nurse with the Veterans Administration, so our vigil was at Sutro Heights Park, near the VA Hospital. We began with a moment of silence. Then, we invited nurses in attendance to share their thoughts and feelings, and several did so. We thank all the nurses who opened their hearts to us.
The candlelight vigil Sunday evening at Sutro Heights Park.
Photo credit: ProBonoPhoto.org/Terry Scussel
We encouraged attendees—many of whom were from the Richmond neighborhood—to introduce themselves to their neighbors and build connections. Minneapolis’s resistance has been effective and resilient because of the community networks they built in the wake of the George Floyd Uprising in 2020; we need to build our versions of those networks as quickly as we can, before the regime targets us once again.
We encourage you to do the same: reach out to your neighbors and set up a regular time to meet up; do favors for each other like giving rides or picking up groceries; find other ways to build friendships and trust that you’ll be able to rely on when it’s our turn under the federal boot.
Lastly, we distributed flyers with three actions you can take:
Add SFILEN’s rapid-response hotline number to your phone right now. The number is 415-200-1548. If you personally see ICE, call this number. (Learn more about what to say during this call from the “How to Report ICE” zine.)
If you are not in San Francisco, you have a different local hotline number. See our map of Bay Area rapid-response hotlines to find yours, or Google your area + “immigration rapid response hotline”.
Adopt a Corner. This program, coordinated by the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, will train you in how to watch out for ICE and what to do when you see them, then provide you with opportunities to do exactly that at places where immigrants need to go to find work or otherwise live their lives.
Donate money to the Immigrant Emergency Relief Fund. This fund is administered by Cultura y Arte Nativas de Americas, an organization in the Mission that runs several aid programs for neighborhood families. The relief fund is for families who’ve lost a breadwinner to an ICE abduction.
You can download these flyers and print them at home or at the library.
The vigil concluded with a lovely cello performance by one of our members who also organizes our pro-democracy postcarding.
One of our members plays music as the sun sets on the vigil.
Photo credit: ProBonoPhoto.org/Paul Rosenblum
Monday and Tuesday
Further vigils have occurred since the weekend, organized by local nurses unions. The California Nurses Association had one Monday evening at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, and the National Federation of Federal Employees Local 1 had one Tuesday evening at the VA Hospital.
And all that was just in the City. Other actions took place around the Bay Area, including several in Oakland, organized by local nurses and by other community members who felt called to exercise their First Amendment right to demand an America in which we are all safe and we are all free—safe from state violence inflicted by lawless bullies who’ve dropped any pretense at enforcing any sort of law, and free to exercise our First Amendment rights to express ourselves in public and document the activities of government agents without being intimidated, harmed, or killed by those same agents. Hundreds of similar vigils and protests occured throughout the United States.
Protest is part of it. Building community will strengthen us even more
From Minneapolis to the Bay, Americans are fed up and not taking this. Minnesotans have shown tremendous compassion, bravery, resilience, and restraint. We, too, will continue to show up in powerful nonviolent protest; we do so every Saturday at Van Ness and O’Farrell in our regular Trump Regime Takedown protest, and we do other actions as the Trump regime’s ongoing crimes warrant.
What can you do? Besides the above actions and others here on our website, you can talk to your neighbors about what you want to do together. It might mean small, private, regular gatherings in which you talk about what’s going on and exchange practical knowledge, or a more public democracy-corner event like our Trump Regime Takedown where you show up to one spot every week for a couple hours and get loud. Or something else that we haven’t thought of!
If you want an “ICE Out for Good” sign to bring to protests or put in your window, you can get one (or a few!) at Trump Regime Takedown, or request a free sign through our form (San Francisco residents only). If you request one through the form, one of our volunteers will deliver the sign to you.
You can also email us or come to our next meeting to join our direct action working group—we can always use more people and we’re happy to share whatever knowledge you need. There’s a need and a role for everyone in this work, and we’d love to help you find yours.
Photo credit: ProBonoPhoto.org/Terry Scussel