A growing Columbus coalition joins in solidarity with Los Angeles protesters for ‘ICE Out’

A couple of weeks back, Lynn Tramonte, the executive director of Ohio Immigrant Alliance, watched her son play in a soccer game against a team whose roster included Emerson Colindres, a 19-year-old high school graduate from Cincinnati who was detained by ICE agents during a routine check-in earlier this month and now faces deportation to Honduras.

“And I remember him, because [he and my son] both have curly, mop hair, and they both look the same from afar, except Emerson was born in Honduras and my son’s dad is from Columbia,” Tramonte said. “And now I see Emerson’s teammates making signs for him and rallying around him, and it’s exactly how my son’s teammates would be if something like this happened to one of them. They grow up playing together, and they develop this brotherhood where they’re not afraid to say they love him, because they’re brothers. And it’s beautiful to see. And it’s because of them I remain optimistic that Emerson will come home.”

These types of citizen-led stands have become more commonplace as the Trump administration and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency have ramped up immigrant sweeps, increasingly targeting immigration courts and workplaces, including an incident last week in which ICE agents arrested more than 40 day-laborers in a Home Depot parking lot in Los Angeles. The move sparked an immediate, growing protest that quickly gained national attention, fueled in part by the videos of ICE agents aggressively arresting people in public that have surfaced as the administration aggressively pushes to raise arrest and deportation numbers.

“We’ve seen the ugly videos of ICE coming up to people on the streets, ripping them away from their kids, pulling them out of their cars,” Tramonte said. “And on Friday, when they went into neighborhoods in Los Angeles, the people said, ‘No, you’re not doing this here. We meant it when we said immigrants are a part of our community, and we’re not letting you take them.’”

In response, President Donald Trump mobilized both the National Guard and the U.S. Marines, sending them to Los Angeles absent the consent of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and opening a volatile new chapter in the administration’s attacks on immigrant communities. In recent days, both Trump and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller – widely viewed as the intellectual architect behind the administration’s draconian immigration policies – have on multiple occasions referred to the protesters as “insurrectionists,” leaving open the possibility that the White House could invoke the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that grant the president authority to use federal troops to quell civil unrest.

Amid this backdrop, and in solidarity with the Los Angeles protesters, organizers in Columbus are set to stage an “ICE Out” rally outside of City Hall, 90 W. Broad St., beginning at 6 p.m. today (Tuesday, June 10).

“It’s important to note, first of all, that these protests are a genuine reaction from working-class people who don’t want to see their neighbors, their brothers, their sisters being taken away,” said Shenby G, an organizer with PSL Columbus, which is joined in staging “ICE Out” by Ohio Immigrant Alliance, Columbus DSA, La Raza Movement, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, and Ohio 50501, among others. “It’s really an expression of people’s resistance to this Trump agenda, which pushes this racist narrative of looters, rioters, criminals, illegals – all of these false labels that are used to try and break the solidarity between working-class people.”

Deja Gaston, an organizer with A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, described Trump’s decision to target California – a Democrat-led state with a large immigrant population – as purposeful, while also reminding of the need to remain vigilant at home as arrests and deportations continue to rise across the nation. “We have a large immigration population here [in Ohio] … and we need to be in solidarity with them,” Gaston said. 

Ohio has previously been the target of the Trump administration’s political tactics, with the community of Haitian immigrants living in Springfield having found itself unexpectedly in the crosshairs at the height of the presidential campaign, during which Trump and Vice President JD Vance joined a cadre of right wing influencers in spreading racist lies as a means of stoking anti-immigrant sentiment among the electorate. 

“And when Trump and Vance started saying these horrible things about Haitian Ohioans, Springfield became under attack, with bomb threats and hate crimes,” Tramonte said. “The danger came from the outside. They brought white supremacists. They brought Nazis. The schools had to close and the city government had to go on lockdown because of the threats made against Haitians. So, they’re the ones bringing hate and violence to our communities. Immigrants are the ones who are trying to keep their heads down, to work, to raise their kids. You’re not seeing immigrants out marching in the streets. They’re scared. The people you see out in the streets, holding signs and waving flags are American citizens who are saying, ‘We love our immigrant friends and neighbors and relatives, and we want Trump and ICE and everybody to stop attacking the people we love and to get back to those problems that really matter, which are things like good, safe schools, affordable housing and healthcare, and a clean environment.’”

Shenby G described the current pro-immigrant protests in Los Angeles and the nationwide rallies given rise in support as part of a growing working class movement that extends back years and includes flashpoints such as Occupy Wall Street, Black lives matter, the Standing Rock protests, and the ongoing pro-Palestine movement. 

“There have been these waves and waves of protests, and that has started to shift the public consciousness,” said Shenby G, who as one example noted the way the rallying cry “abolish ICE,” formerly dismissed as extremist in some mainstream circles, has recently become more widely accepted as a policy position. “And that’s a testament to the work that has been done by organizers mobilizing different communities over decades.”

“And [today’s protest in Columbus] is part of that ongoing process,” said Gaston, who stressed the importance of continuing to build a diverse, intersectional, working-class alliance as a counter what she termed this administration’s “billionaire agenda.” “It’s the only way to really push back in that war against poor, working and oppressed people.”

“It’s a critical moment,” Shenby G added. “Not just for people in Columbus or people in LA, but for people everywhere. We need to take to the streets, and we really, really need to mobilize and get organized in order to fight back.”