Demonstrators gathered in Montreal on Sunday to protest the immigration crackdown by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), calling out the law enforcement agency’s tactics as well as Canadian “complicity” in them.
Scores of protesters assembled outside the U.S. Consulate downtown amid widespread outrage over the killing of two American citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis in the past few weeks.
“The violence ICE is bringing upon people within the United States will not be tolerated anywhere,” said co-organizer Michael Lipset, a Montreal resident since 2016 who was born and raised in the twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
He also pointed to Canadian companies with commercial ties to ICE, including Vancouver-based social media management platform Hootsuite, Ontario defence manufacturer Roshel and Montreal-based security giant GardaWorld.
“We will not tolerate Quebec’s complicity and Canada’s complicity in that violence by way of corporate contracts with ICE,” said Lipset.
Equipped with winter boots and megaphones, demonstrators paraded in front of the U.S. consular building on Sainte-Catherine Street in the early afternoon before walking to Dorchester Square.
Protesters chanted, “From Minnesota to Montreal, we won’t stop until ICE falls.”
Lynn Worrell said she was there to show her solidarity with Americans resisting the immigration enforcement tactics deployed in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago and other cities that U.S. President Donald Trump has alleged are overwhelmed by “undocumented criminals.”
“Minneapolis, we see you,” Worrell said.
She argued that Canada should stop exporting military equipment to U.S. agencies if those shipments could be used to facilitate human rights violations.
‘We are complicit’
“We are complicit in supporting ICE,” she said, noting that Roshel-made armoured vehicles appeared to be on site at the killing of Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse who was shot multiple times after he used his cellphone to record U.S. Border Patrol officers conducting an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis.
Sunday’s rally capped off a weekend of demonstrations across the continent.
On Friday afternoon, protesters in Vancouver gathered outside Hootsuite headquarters to demand the tech company end contracts tied to ICE. A U.S. procurement site shows the contracts, which were first reported by Business in Vancouver, are worth up to $2.8 million US.
The same day, protesters across the U.S. held “no work, no school, no shopping” strikes to oppose the Trump administration’s immigration measures.
The demonstrations took place amid a visceral backlash to the Jan. 24 death of Pretti, as well as the Jan. 7 death of Renée Good, who was fatally shot behind the wheel of her vehicle by an ICE officer.