People packed the Philadelphia Parking Authority’s Market Street boardroom Tuesday morning to voice opposition to a variety of policies, and most of all, the PPA’s parking contract with the Department of Homeland Security.

In September 2025, the PPA entered into a one-year contract with DHS to provide 16 indoor parking spaces for $53,520.

The contract has become the focus of protests calling on the parking authority to cut ties with the federal agency, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I was raised to think, ‘How will our actions be judged by our descendants?’” said Rev. Jay Bergen, a pastor at Germantown Mennonite Church and volunteer with NO ICE Philadelphia.

“I’d rather not be here today,” they stated, “but I am because I am accountable to the congregation I serve, my family and my 2-year-old nephew who, in a few years, will ask, ‘What did you do while ICE agents rounded up your neighbors?’”

The cost of ICE maintaining parking for 16 vehicles in Philadelphia, Bergen argued, far outweighs whatever potential actions the Trump administration may take in response to a nonrenewal of contract.

However, Bergen reiterated a fact that is difficult to overlook: Philadelphia has taken an increasingly strong stance against ICE, recently passing a sweeping package of legislation aimed at limiting the federal agency’s operations and the city’s cooperation with it.

Jack McCurnin, who works with intellectually disabled individuals in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, said ICE’s continued presence in Philadelphia’s suburbs has had a negative effect on its population.

“ICE, through their offices in Philly, harasses multiple of my residents and their families,” McCurnin said.

“I want you to imagine that you cannot speak, that you’re not from this country,” he said. ”Now, you’ve got an agent of the state; you don’t know what they are; nobody’s explained because they don’t think you can understand. You can’t say words, but you can feel it.”

In all, around a dozen anti-ICE activists attended the meeting. Others who spoke included Miriam Oppenheimer, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, who likened ICE’s activities in Philadelphia to those of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.

The PPA’s contract with DHS expires on Sept. 29. Despite the looming date, it remains unclear what the PPA will do come the end of the month.