00:00In Lynn, Massachusetts, organizers held the city's largest anti-Ice protest, denouncing
00:05arrests of non-criminal immigrants and minors, while building community networks to protect
00:10families and spread awareness of their rights. Journalist Mitch Gaines has the story.
00:17I'm here in Lynn, Massachusetts. About a half hour outside of the city of Boston,
00:20with one of the highest immigrant populations in the entire northeastern United States.
00:24Organizers here are staging what they say is the largest anti-Ice demonstration in the
00:29city's history.
00:37Immigration took my brother in front of my children's school.
00:42Mice has certainly been on our streets. They've been at our courthouse. I've witnessed cars
00:49pulled over on the side of the road, fathers with their children in the car, you know, they've
00:53taken them right away from their kids.
00:56The moment that we are in right now is a crisis of our families being separated, of our families
01:02and our communities being broken apart, of our people being criminalized, because we know
01:07in this country that when we criminalize people, we can take away their rights.
01:11ISIS has aggressively ramped up their operations under the urging of President Trump, with
01:14capture quarters leading to a significant increase in arrest of non-criminals and minors.
01:19Over 3,000 arrests have been made in just Massachusetts, here in 2025 and the early part of 2026, with
01:2446 to 60 percent of those detained having no criminal convictions or pending charges.
01:28We love this country, we love it, and they say that we only come to do harm.
01:37But no, we come to bring improvement for ourselves.
01:42We are here together, to stand. We are not here, we do not welcome ICE, and we are not
01:48here for mass deportation.
01:52Organizers in Linn have looked at Minneapolis for inspiration, where a heavily militarized
01:56ICE operation and ICE murders of two U.S. citizens have sparked massive community resistance,
02:00ultimately leading the Trump administration to pull back.
02:03They say community organizing developed out of the 2020 George Floyd Rebellion, which helped
02:08prepare them to defend their neighbors.
02:09Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, the city of Linn!
02:14Organizers in Linn are following suit.
02:16They've distributed hundreds of whistles for neighbors to alert one another of ICE's presence,
02:19and invited attendees at today's event to join their ICE Watch WhatsApp group chat.
02:24What we learned from talking to union members out in Minneapolis is that they had set up
02:29these verifier networks, mutual aid networks.
02:32You know, the lessons that we learned from that is organizing beforehand is the key to that.
02:37And having those networks already there, the phone trees already there, for if ICE is banging
02:41on our doors, we know that we have enough people that we can make serious interventions
02:46to get them out of our community.
02:48When we see it in the WhatsApp, we blow the whistle.
02:52We want people, right?
02:54So check the WhatsApp.
02:57There it is.
03:00When verifiers with Luce go out into the streets, they are knocking on doors to also tell people
03:07about their rights, because a lot of what's happening right now is because people are scared.
03:12But we know it's actually when we're together like this, when we're a community, when I
03:15can look at my neighbor and know who they are, that is actually when we are the safest, and
03:19we are the ones who keep each other safe.
03:21ICE!
03:22Out on here!
03:23ICE!
03:24Out on here!
03:26ICE!
03:27Out on here!
03:28ICE!
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