Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
About two dozen No ICE Philly activists gathered Saturday outside a parking garage in Old City<\/a>, demanding the Philadelphia Parking Authority<\/a> end an arrangement with Immigration<\/a> and Customs Enforcement. <\/p>\n At issue are 16 parking passes at the federally-owned garage on 2nd Street, which is managed by the PPA. The group sang protest songs, held signs, and passed out informational fliers that resembled oversized PPA parking tickets.<\/p>\n \u201cWho doesn\u2019t know what these things look like, you know?\u201d said one activist handing out fliers.<\/p>\n Group organizer Jay Bergen said the rally is meant to pressure the PPA \u2014 and to let people know that ICE is using the parking garage. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s scary that you could be parking downtown, and unbeknownst to you, parking next to an ICE agent,\u201d Bergen said. <\/p>\n Bergen, a 34-year old pastor at the Germantown<\/a> Mennonite Church, pointed to public records<\/a> showing a $53,520 contract that allows \u201cfor parking of government vehicles for ICE Homeland Security investigations\u201d at the garage.<\/p>\n That contract was set to expire at the end of September, but another one, beginning in October and running through at least next September, gives Department of Homeland Security \u201c16 leased parking spaces,\u201d records show<\/a>. ICE is part of DHS.<\/p>\n PPA spokesperson Martin O\u2019Rourke declined to comment on the contracts.<\/p>\n Bergen said the group opposes ICE for \u201ckidnappings\u201d of immigrants and others, including people who have lived legally in the community for decades. One recent example is a 30-year-old nurse from Delaware County<\/a>, who was arrested while taking her son to Disneyland<\/a>. <\/p>\n Bergen said most people detained by ICE did nothing wrong. Some had minor lapses in paperwork or had been convicted of summary or misdemeanor crimes. <\/p>\n \u201cTheir goal is terror. It\u2019s not public safety in any meaningful way,\u201d Bergen said. <\/p>\n The local ICE field office did not respond to a request for comment Saturday. <\/p>\n At the rally, protester Akarsh Balaji said that the amount of money PPA makes on the contracts is \u201cless than what they spend every year on salt to de-ice the streets.\u201d <\/p>\n Balaji said he\u2019s seen ICE harass his Puerto Rican neighbors in West Kensington<\/a>. Puerto Ricans are Americans \u2014 so is Balaji, who is of Indian ethnicity \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t seem to matter, he said. <\/p>\n \u201cNobody should have to live in fear, or be told that they\u2019re harmful to society,\u201d Balaji said. <\/p>\n Balaji said he got involved with the group in February after feeling a need to do something, \u201cand be part of a movement that is so much bigger than I was.\u201d<\/p>\n No ICE Philly has been active since ICE ramped up activities under the Trump administration last year. In January, protesters blocked vehicle access to a Center City garage<\/a> used by ICE. In March, nearly a dozen protesters were arrested<\/a> while blocking the garage.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to make it as difficult as possible for ICE to do its job,\u201d Bergen said. <\/p>\n In Philly, ICE has faced obstacles from residents and elected officials. In April, the city adopted some of the nation\u2019s most aggressive polices aimed at restricting ICE<\/a>. The legislation took effect in July but the federal Department of Justice sued<\/a> the city over some of its directives.<\/p>\n Bergen said ICE has changed its tactics since early this year, when its Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota \u2014 and the killings, captured on video, of U.S. citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti \u2014 led to overwhelming public opposition to the agency. <\/p>\n \u201cBut the fear has not gone down. I heard this week about someone whose mother is afraid to go to doctor\u2019s appointments, because she\u2019s afraid ICE might grab her,\u201d Bergen said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min About two dozen No ICE Philly activists gathered Saturday outside a parking garage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[123414,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-299256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-no-ice-philly-ppa-protest","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}