Report: ICE Tracked Anti-Trump Protests in NYC

By The Daily Beast

08 March 19

s anti-Trump sentiment reached a fever pitch last summer, Immigration and Customs Enforcement began monitoring and tracking left-wing protests in New York City, according to documents cited in a Wednesday report from The Nation. On July 31, The Nation reports, ICE sent an email to a group of recipients that included a Department of Homeland Security supervisor with an attached document called “Anti-Trump Protest Spreadsheet 07/31/2018.” The four-page document reportedly listed the “time, date, location and purpose” of protests and rallies between July 31 and August 17, and also tracked the groups that organized them and the number of people that had RSVP’ed on Facebook. The tracked actions were largely pro-immigration events; the only right-wing protest that made the list was reportedly marked as a “counter-protest.”

In a statement to The Nation, ICE attempted to downplay the seriousness of the list, claiming that “The referenced email was provided to HSI agents for situational awareness should any HSI employees be travelling (sic) through those areas, whether on work or personal time.” But the tracked organizers believe there’s something more sinister about the list: “If [the Department of Homeland Security] is specifically focusing on those who are against the current president, it gets into the realm of what fascist regimes do,” one volunteer organizer said. “If they are watching us because we are against the current president’s policies, it is more than a little disturbing.”