Anti-ICE protesters block Seattle immigration court exits with e-bikes

A fluctuating crowd of roughly 50 to 100 demonstrators gathered for more than eight hours Tuesday outside the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in downtown Seattle in support of immigrants and to show solidarity with protesters in Los Angeles. Following a morning rally, protesters barricaded driveways with e-bikes and e-scooters to block Department of Homeland Security vehicles thought to be transporting detained immigrants from exiting.

The building, which houses Seattle’s immigration court, went on lockdown at 8 a.m. as the day’s hearings got underway and a rally protesting deportations and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began outside. The lockdown was still in effect as of 2 p.m., though people with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project were allowed in.

“SPD, KKK, ICE, they’re all the same!” the rally crowd chanted to the beat of someone banging a drumstick against a plastic bucket emblazoned with the words “Abolish ICE.”

Some demonstrators lifted signs above their heads bearing messages like “Our neighbors are in cages” and “No to deportations.”

The atmosphere remained calm until shortly before 11:30 a.m., when five DHS officers emerged from the building. By then, protesters had begun piling e-scooters and e-bikes in front of the building’s four driveways.

The officers rounded the corner of Second Avenue and Madison Street and told protesters to stop blocking the driveways before picking up the scooters and bikes and moving them onto the sidewalk.

“Shame!” some protesters shouted at the officers. A group of demonstrators closely followed the officers as they walked to the other driveways and dismantled the other makeshift barricades before reentering the building through a side door.

This cycle repeated itself several times throughout the day, with 10 officers – some equipped with gas masks, helmets and impact weapons – emerging shortly before 1:30 p.m.

Seattle police temporarily blocked traffic on Spring Street and Second Avenue because of the protest at about 11:30 a.m., using a patrol car to block the road. The department reopened the road about 20 minutes later.

By 3 p.m., about 30 protesters remained stationed around the building. Small groups gathered at each of the building’s four driveways, which remained blocked by piled scooters and bikes. Some demonstrators waved and held up signs to cars traveling down Second Avenue, bearing messages like, “ICE: Destroying Lives Inside This Court.”

Around 4 p.m., the garage door closest to the corner of Second Avenue and Madison Street was opened. DHS officers and employees dragged the scooters and bikes inside. A DHS officer stood watching from an upper story balcony pointing an impact weapon at the protesters gathered outside the open garage door. Protesters yelled “Let our neighbors go!”

As of roughly 6 p.m., protesters were tying the e-bikes and e-scooters together with zip ties and duct tape.

A security guard stationed at the building’s entrance said they were notified this morning about the lockdown, which was scheduled to end by 10 a.m. but was extended because of protest activity.

“We didn’t know it was going to be like this,” he said, nodding to the protesters gathered outside.

Among the demonstrators was former U.S. Marine Matt Payne, 47, who said it was his third week of going to the federal building to observe immigration hearings. He said he sometimes stands outside to hand people “know your rights” documents before they enter the building or gets into elevators with ICE agents to observe how they treat people who are there for their immigration hearings.

Tuesday was the first time he’d arrived to find the building’s front doors locked.

Standing outside, Payne said he was concerned about how ICE agents might treat immigrants if members of the public aren’t inside to observe.

“This is our L.A. moment,” he said. “They’re getting more and more aggressive.”

NBC News reported Tuesday that ICE was preparing to deploy its Special Response Teams to five cities, including Seattle. It is unclear whether raids using those tactical units will begin immediately. Units in the five cities, all run by Democratic leaders, have been told to be ready to deploy, NBC News reported.

Mathieu Chabaud, a third-year mathematics student at University of Washington, helped organize the rally. The event was meant to show solidarity with protesters in Los Angeles, where President Donald Trump has sent federal troops, including Marines, in response to daily protests against local immigration raids. The protest also comes just one day after Trump’s new travel ban went into effect Monday.

“I don’t want my classmates being deported,” said Chabaud, 21, who is chair of the progressive student organization Students for a Democratic Society at UW. “This is terror against our community and we need to stand up to that.”

Chabaud said he was concerned about international students who face deportation if their visas are revoked. Students for Democratic Society is planning to host a forum this month to develop a “strategic plan” for what to do if ICE agents appear on campus, Chabaud said.

About 13 miles south of the federal building, a crowd of immigration advocates gathered Tuesday morning at an office complex outside of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport where Gov. Bob Ferguson and several other elected officials spoke about President Trump’s travel ban that went into effect Monday.

“It is a little difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that we’re back here again on another travel ban,” Ferguson said. Eight years ago, the then-attorney general won a lawsuit against the first Trump administration’s travel ban targeting majority-Muslim countries.

Trump’s new ban, announced last week, bars citizens of 12 countries from traveling to the U.S., citing national security concerns. The ban applies to Afghanistan, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, the Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also restricts access for people from seven other countries.

Immigrant communities in Seattle have been shaken by the ban and fear they won’t be able to reunite with their loved ones.

Afghan green-card holders and even Afghan American citizens are scared, Ziauddin Baraki told the crowd outside the airport Tuesday. The Afghan immigrant, interpreter for the U.S. Army and organizer with the immigrant advocacy group OneAmerica, said many have told him they canceled flights to see their families.

Because of the nature of his job as an interpreter, Baraki said he can’t reenter Afghanistan for safety reasons, so he hasn’t seen his family in person for years. He can sympathize with the isolation many separated immigrant families may be feeling. Baraki can call his family in Kabul, but the distance has been hard on him.

“I left behind my community, loved ones and everything I had built in search of freedom, security and the chance to rebuild my life in a place where I could live without fear,” Baraki told the crowd. For many, he said, “this isn’t just a policy. It is a crashing blow to their hopes for safety, reunification and stability.”

Ferguson filed the nation’s first lawsuit against Trump’s 2017 travel ban three days after he signed the executive order. This time, the state’s attorney general’s office is not making quick work of challenging the Trump Administration’s newest policy.

“We’re still doing the analysis,” Attorney General Nick Brown told the Seattle Times. “In 2017 when the ban came out, it was so blatantly unlawful and unconstitutional and it targeted Muslim people directly. This travel ban is better written – it’s more narrow in its scope … they’ve added more data around their purported reasons for it.”

Nevertheless, Brown said the ban was “clearly unfair, discriminatory, and will impact millions and millions of people who pose no risk whatsoever to our country.”