Several dozen demonstrators marched through downtown State College, protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alleging local officials have enabled immigration enforcement and briefly disrupting a Borough Council meeting on Monday night.
The protest began around 6:30 p.m. outside Old Main, where organizers from the Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity and the People’s Defense Front addressed a crowd gathered on the lawn.
“Their lives, their lived experiences, are being disrupted unjustly in the cause of imperialism,” a protest organizer said. “Today, we are showing ICE our strength as a community. We are showing ICE our power together. We will not be afraid. We are not going to cower.”
Many demonstrators wore face coverings and held signs criticizing ICE and local leadership. Chants echoed across campus and downtown as the group moved into the streets, first marching to the HUB-Robeson Center then to East College Avenue, where they caused traffic backups and drew jeers from several motorists.
After traversing College and Beaver Avenues, at one point stopping a borough police car and shouting “shame,” the group arrive at the State College Municipal Building chanting anti-ICE slogans and calling for local officials to take action to protect immigrants.
Upon arriving at the Municipal Building, several protesters entered during a Borough Council meeting, interrupting proceedings with chants before exiting shortly after. Outside, demonstrators hung signs on and around the building and continued rallying.
Inside at the Borough Council meeting, after two community members spoke during public comment calling for the borough to enact an ordinance to protect immigrants and explicitly prohibit local police cooperation with ICE, several protesters entered the room and shouted at the council members and staff for about two minutes, calling specific council members, “cowards,” “sellouts” and “liars.”
The organizing groups have repeatedly alleged that a witness reported State College police assisted ICE with an arrest in March near the intersection of East College Avenue and Houserville Road in College Township.
The department said it was not made aware of the enforcement in advance and did not participate in it. State College Council President Evan Myers has also reiterated the borough’s policy that it does not get involved with immigration enforcement.
“Week after week, people have come here asking you to pass one ordinance, and you still refuse to do it, even though other cities have passed ordinances or more to prevent this from happening. What does it take for you to pass one thing to prevent ICE from working together to kidnap workers?” one of the protesters shouted.
Later in the meeting, Myers addressed the interruption, saying that “it is important that we listen and I think we heard what was said by those folks.” He again restated the borough’s policy not to participate in immigration enforcement.
“We do not aid ICE. It was stated over and over again,” Myers said. “I’ll say it again right now because that’s what we do. I asked the [borough] manager, ‘did State College Police participate in any ICE activities?’ And the answer was no. We were told that we had. We have no evidence of that. That is not our policy, and if there is evidence, I’d like to see it because that’s not what we stand for.”
Myers told StateCollege.com on Tuesday that he “would be happy to not just meet with [protesters], but to work together to figure out the types of things that we can do to protect our residents.”
Noting that he voted in favor of a tabled resolution calling for ICE reform, he said that he has asked borough staff to look into what can legally be done locally to protect immigrants and is awaiting the report.
“I think that it’s important to understand the positions that have been taken by council and the things we have done,” Myers said.” We’ve passed resolutions and ordinances protecting immigrants… I think the people that came and protested are the allies of the folks on council … we’re both on the same side. I want to work together to come up with things that will work. There are certain things that State College government can’t do that maybe some other higher class cities like Philadelphia, et cetera, can do. But we’re looking at but we’re looking into those things.”
Back outside on Monday night, a number of protesters plastered what they called “decorations” to the front and back entrances of the building. The flyers included images of Mayor Ezra Nanes, Chief Joseph Merrill and Myers, calling them “liars.”
Demonstrators framed the protest as a show of collective power and resistance, directing criticism at elected officials and university leadership.
“We are not here to ask politely for the Borough Council and for the university administration to protect this community from ICE. We are here to say that we will not stand for ICE in this community,” a protest organizer said. “… And when we gather here and we disrupt business as usual, when we take the streets and we disrupt the Borough council meetings, we are showing that we have this power because we are the people that make this tide run.”
After leaving the front entrance municipal building, protesters continued marching, stopping at the rear entrance of the building, where additional signs were posted.
Demonstrators also placed flyers critical of local leadership on vehicles in a nearby borough parking lot, including on police and parking enforcement vehicles. When asked, police near the scene said they were unsure if it was legal or not for protesters to place the flyers on the windows and windshields of the authorized vehicles.
The march came amid a series of similar demonstrations in Centre County in recent weeks, including protests in nearby Bellefonte. Activists have connected their efforts to broader national conversations around immigration enforcement and policing.
People’s Defense Front organizers said their group conducts regular patrols in the area to monitor for ICE activity. The organization has about 60 to 70 members and runs roughly 60 patrol shifts per week, according to organizers, who describe the effort as a way to protect community members.
“That’s why we’re out here today; they struck a blow to us. They took one of us. Now we’re starting a blow back,” an organizer said. This is for the working class. We’re striking the blow here today and at the end of the day right now we’re living in a nightmare where people are worked to die and thrown away, where people are starved, where people are butchered, but at the end of the day, we all fight, and we all get people’s justice…This is not just a dream or hope, it is a fact.”
No arrests were reported Monday night and there were no permits for the protest. Police continued to patrol and monitor the protest as demonstrators moved through downtown before dispersing later in the evening in Sidney Friedman Park.
