Downriver demonstrators protest ICE actions

 

By SUE SUCHYTA

Sunday Times Newspapers

SOUTHGATE – Downriver demonstrators braved the cold Jan. 11 to protest recent Trump administration operations and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, gathering on Fort Street between Chestnut and Phelps streets.

A signboard encouraged motorists to honk to signify support as they traveled south past the participants.

Protest organizer Beth Merrow of Rockwood said she was participating to fight for democracy.

“I don’t want people to not have healthcare, I don’t want people to not have food, I don’t want Trump to turn the military against us, I don’t want him taking other countries when he can’t even run his own country,” she said. “I don’t appreciate them allowing ICE to just do whatever they want and terrorize the neighborhoods and rip families apart.”

Merrow said she talked to a teenager who stopped to argue with them, and he ended up taking a card with some of their talking points to look at further.

Protest organizer Celina Peters of Trenton said the past week had been difficult for many, from actions in Venezuela to Minneapolis, which encouraged people to join the protest despite the cold.

“I feel really overwhelmed with what’s happening all over the country with ICE, because that could have been any one of us at this point,” she said. “When I look at the video of what happened to Renee Good, I would have been doing that same exact thing, and honestly there’s a very big chance that I could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and I probably would have acted the same way she did and I probably would have said the same last words as well.”

 

Peters said she pities people who aren’t able to think with their hearts anymore.

“Downriver is a very divided area and I am just hoping that soon people can start to realize what’s really happening,” she said. “We can’t live as neighbors together like this.”

Advocate Dr. Jessica Schering of Trenton said the protesters were there to remember Renee Good, who was fatally shot Jan. 7 by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.

She said they also want to send a message to ICE to stay out of their communities.

“We don’t need you,” she said. “We have each other, we have our community, and this is a way for all of us to really express that community and tribe for people that are grieving in Minnesota.”

Schering said that when she heard how emergency medical technicians were blocked from the scene because of the presence of ICE vehicles, she realized that she as a physician might have been prevented from responding as well.

“They (ICE) carried her out like a sack of potatoes out of her car,” she said. “It’s horrific and I think it’s felt nationwide.”

Schering said protests are taking place across the nation and Downriver is trying to do its part.

“For everything that’s happening throughout the world, and the things that are inciting more violence, potentially war, is just shameful and the American people deserve better,” she said.