Penn South resident Judith Sokoloff shared with Chelsea Community News her photos aken at Friday, January 23’s Ice Out for Good action–described by a promotional flyer as a “March on ICE Profiteers” that also functioned as a declaration of “Solidarity with Minneapolis.” Among the groups and organizations who signed on and showed up were Hands Off NYC, Strong Economy for All Coalition, and the labor unions 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, and UFT.

The march, which began at Union Square, cut across 14th Street, up Sixth Ave. to 23rd Street, then east for a stop at the Home Depot between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. “It was peaceful, but very energetic and spirited,” recalled Sokoloff of the crowd, noting that time spent in front of Home Depot elicited from participants great, guttural invocations of the damning cry, “Shame on You!” (Home Depot has been criticized for not denouncing federal immigration actions on its premises; day laborers have long gravitated toward the Depot and similar businesses in hopes of securing work and/or purchasing materials necessary for repair and construction tasks.)

Sokoloff said that alongside the “Shame!” shouts were upbeat and defiant “music and singing. As we were leaving Union Square, I heard Woody Guthrie’s All You Fascists Bound to Lose.”

 I’m gonna tell all you fascists you may be surprised 

 The people in this world are getting organized 

 You’re bound to lose, you fascists are bound to lose

Sokoloff added that she was heartened by “the smaller groups and the young people. And I was so moved by some of the older people, standing all alone and with the most determined looks on their faces.”

Common among the participants was a shared sense of outrage at the use of federal resources and personnel to target longtime members of the community, often entire families, for removal. “It was palpable,” said Sokoloff, of the “anger, sorrow, and disgust at the cruelty of ICE.”

—Compiled by Scott Stiffler

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