Thousands of people gathered at Foley Square in Manhattan on Friday to protest the immigration crackdown that led to the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
An estimated 7,000 people filled the open plaza near City Hall, where speakers addressed the crowd from a PA system set up near the Triumph of the Human Spirit fountain.
Around 5:30 p.m., they marched uptown to Washington Square Park, before hitting Union Square, where a hard-core contingent of roughly 500 protesters continued in the frigid cold, heading north on Broadway toward Madison Square Park.
“I have to compose myself. I’m going to cry,” Melanie Kletter, a public school teacher, told a Daily News reporter at the demonstration. “People don’t deserve to be treated like criminals. The extreme levels of force shown to immigrants and protesters is out of control. This has to end.”
The thousands-strong demonstration in Manhattan came as protests sweep the nation as part of Friday’s planned “National Shutdown,” during which organizers hope that schools and workplaces will empty as people take to the streets to demand an end to ICE enforcement raids.
“Everything in the world is so terrible right now,” said 13-year-old Layla Ferrara, who traveled to Foley Square to protest ICE with her mother. “I feel like this is something I can do to help.
“Immigrants shouldn’t be criminalized. We all eat the same bread and need a safe home.”
Many of the protesters held their phones above their heads to gain a vantage over the massive crowd. Some carried handmade signs, including posters that read, “ICE GTFO of NYC” and “Ch–ga la Migra,” which is Spanish for “F— the Border Patrol.”
Joy Hecht, 69, joined the protest carrying a sign that read, “Give me your tired, give me your poor.”
“Immigrants, that’s why we’re here. That’s why our country is here. My grandparents were on the boat. That’s why I’m here,” said Hecht, an economist from Manhattan.
“Our government is destroying our country. We’re almost all of us immigrants. That’s what our country is. That’s what New York City is. I’m here standing with immigrants.”
Toward the end of the march, demonstrators stopped outside the Home Depot store on 23rd St. between Fifth and Sixth Aves. and shouted, “F— Home Depot!” and “Shut it down!”
Advocates say the home improvement chain has become “a hotbed for ICE arrests” of migrant day laborers — who gather at its parking lots or nearby to get hired for construction projects — and are demanding that the outlet speak out against the raids.
