Salted streets and crumbling mounds of icy snow leftover from last week’s storm made for a grimly metaphorical setting at Hopkins Plaza Friday, as hundreds of Baltimoreans gathered holding signs (“Melt ICE” and “ICE Out”) demanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement stand down and leave the city.
The demonstration was aligned with a National Shutdown that called for activists to boycott school, work, and shopping in objection to the Trump Administration’s ICE crackdowns happening across the country, especially in Minneapolis—where the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, among others, have rattled the nation.
While some local businesses and art galleries closed Friday to show their solidarity, others, like Chuck’s Trading Post in Hampden, demonstrated their support by offering free warm meals to protestors or donating a percentage of sales to organizations like CASA, which works to improve the quality of life for immigrant communities.
Similarly, Maillard Pastries in Hampden and Lauraville is donating 100 percent of hot drink sales to the Immigration Law Center of Minnesota this weekend. Throughout the past week, Greedy Reads in Remington and Fells Point has also been donating a portion of sales to the same organization. Other business owners have followed suit, as well.
Friday’s protest began at 2 p.m. and saw a procession march around the federal courthouse, where many detainees are currently being held. Below, contributing photojournalist J.M. Giordano captures the scene.
