{"id":117990,"date":"2026-01-31T00:41:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T00:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/117990\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T00:41:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T00:41:06","slug":"thousands-of-protesters-flood-foley-square-in-nyc-for-national-shutdown-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/117990\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of protesters flood Foley Square in NYC for \u2018National Shutdown Day\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 Thousands of people gathered at Foley Square<\/a> in Manhattan on Friday to protest the immigration crackdown that led to the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

An estimated 7,000 people filled the open plaza near City Hall, where speakers addressed the crowd from a PA system set up near the Triumph of the Human Spirit<\/a> fountain.<\/p>\n

Around 5:30 p.m., they set off marching uptown, heading toward Washington Square Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to compose myself. I\u2019m going to cry,\u201d Melanie Kletter, a public school teacher, told a Daily News reporter at the demonstration. \u201cPeople don\u2019t deserve to be treated like criminals. The extreme levels of force shown to immigrants and protesters is out of control. This has to end.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thousands-strong demonstration in Manhattan came as protests sweep the nation as part of Friday\u2019s planned \u201cNational Shutdown,\u201d<\/a> during which organizers hope that schools and workplaces will empty as people take to the streets to demand an end to ICE enforcement raids.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything in the world is so terrible right now,\u201d said 13-year-old Layla Ferrara, who traveled to Foley Square to protest ICE with her mother. \u201cI feel like this is something I can do to help.<\/p>\n

\u201cImmigrants shouldn\u2019t\u2019 be criminalized. We all eat the same bread and need a safe home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the protesters held their phones above their heads to gain a vantage over the massive crowd. Some carried handmade signs, including posters that read, \u201cICE GTFO of NYC\u201d and \u201cCh\u2013ga la Migra,\u201d which is Spanish for \u201cF\u2014 the Border Patrol.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joy Hecht, 69, joined the protest carrying a sign that read, \u201cGive me your tired, give me your poor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cImmigrants, that\u2019s why we\u2019re here. That\u2019s why our country is here. My grandparents were on the boat. That\u2019s why I\u2019m here,\u201d said Hecht, an economist from Manhattan.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur government is destroying our country. We\u2019re almost all of us immigrants. That\u2019s what our country is. That\u2019s what New York City is. I\u2019m here standing with immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Thousands of people gathered at Foley Square in Manhattan on Friday to protest the immigration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[44011,75,9,56,63,65,64,15081],"class_list":["post-117990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-foley-square","tag-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-washington-square-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}