On Jan. 30, hundreds gathered at Amherst Town Common to protest the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the deaths of eight people in ICE-related incidents in 2026.
The event began shortly after 3 p.m., with dozens of people pouring in from the streets and parking lots bundled up and holding signs. The crowd, consisting of college and high school students, community members and children, poured out into the snow and filled the streets as the temperature reached 12 degrees Fahrenheit.
People showed up with snow shovels and began shoveling out parts of the Common to properly stand. Students from Amherst-Pelham Regional High School marched to the Common holding their own signs, having walked from the high school after school let out.
Caroline Flinn, co-president of Amherst College Democrats, and Xyoa Wilding, a member of Amherst College Democrats, organized the event.
“Today is the day we can … no longer allow business to continue as usual,” Flinn said. “We cannot allow the authoritarian regime to continue … senseless violence.”
Flinn added that they were there to support the Minnesotans who have protested in large numbers after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good at the hands of ICE agents and to fight authoritarianism by gathering with the community. Flinn also said that she hoped people got a “sense of urgency” out of the rally and acknowledged the violence happening in the country.
“If you don’t show up until it affects you directly, then it’s going to affect you directly in a much more harmful way,” Wilding said.
Flinn spoke about the purpose of the general strike, stating that ICE was inherently flawed as a “system built on panic and racial profiling” that produces violence.
“And systems like this don’t survive on their own,” she said. “It survives through silence, through compliance, through the lie that if it’s not happening to you, you can look away. We are here today to reject that lie.”
Kalina Kornacki
John Bonifaz, a constitutional attorney and the president of Free Speech For People, invoked the U.S. Constitution in his speech and demanded that the Massachusetts attorney general and district attorneys enforce criminal law against ICE.
“There is no such thing as absolute immunity,” Bonifaz said, alluding to Vice President J.D. Vance’s comment that Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who killed Renee Good on Jan. 7 had “absolute immunity.”
“The Supremacy Clause in the Constitution gives federal agents the right to carry out their lawful duties all over the country. But they do not have immunity to commit murder,” Bonifaz said. “They do not have immunity to kidnap. They do not have immunity to engage in assault and battery. They do not have immunity to engage in illegal detentions.”
Jeff Conant, Amherst resident and activist, similarly urged people to engage with their local and state governments to pass legislation that would keep ICE out of the state, which would be a step beyond the current restrictions against ICE.
On Jan. 29, Governor Maura Healey introduced legislation to prevent ICE agents from entering schools, hospitals, courthouses and places of worship. Healey also signed an executive order limiting state and local cooperation with ICE unless a public safety need emerges, among other protections.
“This is the state where democracy was founded … and if we don’t stand up and show the rest of the country what we’re made of and what we can do, then we’re not doing our jobs, and our public officials are not doing their jobs, right?” Conant said.
Amherst High School junior Liana Page said that ICE’s actions were not normal and should not be normalized, pointing to stories of parents and children being separated by ICE.
According to a report from the American Immigration Council, nearly 30,000 U.S. citizen children in Massachusetts live with at least one undocumented parent. Children with parents who are deported often experience severe psychological effects that worsen long-term and can lead to developmental and behavioral problems as well as academic decline.
“People are being detained and deported, not because they are dangerous, not because they’ve caused harm, but because of where they were born. People are being sent to countries that they have not called home since they were children, places where they have no family, no safety and no future,” Page said. “This is not justice. This is state-sponsored terror.”
Page repeated the names of people recently killed by ICE agents and five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who had been held in a detention center in Dilley, Texas after being taken from his home in Minnesota for over a week. On Jan. 31, a federal judge ordered the release of Liam and his father. As she spoke, some parents in the crowd clutched signs in one arm and held their children close with the other.
“We demand policies rooted in humanity, accountability and compassion,” said Page. “We demand a country where no human being is treated as illegal. We demand a future where families are protected and not hunted. We stand for immigrant justice. We stand for dignity. We stand for each other.”
Maia Seetal, from the Amherst hub of the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network, echoed tangible action in her speech, notably by telling people to sign up to become verifiers for the organization, which monitors ICE activity across the state.
“At the core of LUCE’s mission is the understanding that ‘el pueblo salva al pueblo,’” said Seetal. “The people save the people. We must rely on each other.”
Julian Montes-Sharp, co-president of Amherst College Democrats, delivered concluding remarks as the sun began setting behind the Amherst Town Hall. He told people to save LUCE’s hotline number and the Senate switchboard number to their phones and encouraged them to show up at the No Kings protest on March 28, as well as to vote in the midterm elections in November.
“Talk. Stay active. Talk to your friends, your family, your co-workers, your neighbor. All they want us to do is remain silent,” Montes-Sharp said. “We are in this for the long run.”
After hearing reports of ICE agents in Holyoke, Springfield and New Bedford, UMass alumni Leslie Davis saw the ICE protest post from Facebook. She chose to attend the protest to stand in “solidarity with what’s happening in Minnesota and across the country.”
“UMass is such an esteemed institution because it has people from all around the world who are scholars there and it’s kind of critical to its mission,” Davis said. “I do feel like as a campus community, we have to stand up for that as an ideal and stand up for people’s rights.”
Grace Chai can be reached at [email protected]. Kalina Kornacki can be reached at [email protected].
