The New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested over 60 people early Tuesday evening after a large group of protesters packed the lobby of the Hilton Garden Inn in Tribeca. Many could be seen wearing “HILTON HOUSES ICE” T-shirts, and a number of demonstrators ended up crowding outside the entrance of the hotel once the modest-sized lobby hit capacity. Between the roaring chants and ringing of whistles, their message was unmistakable: Immigration agents are not welcome here or anywhere, and businesses that serve them are legitimate targets for disruption.
While it remains unclear whether federal immigration authorities were in fact staying at the hotel, Hilton has doubled down on its decision to continue accommodating them.
Earlier this month, Hilton and a locally operated hotel in Minnesota apologized for refusing to serve immigration agents, something that local operators at the facility initiated on their own. Hilton followed up the next day with a statement indicating that it was “taking immediate action to remove this hotel from our systems.” The company also fired an employee at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas, who declined to take down a social media video alerting viewers that immigration agents were staying at the hotel.
Hotels have become part of the front lines of local resistance against immigration enforcement. About a month ago, community members in the Twin Cities rallied outside a Homewood Suites by Hilton in Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis. As Sahan Journal reported, some 150 protesters “banged pots and pans, blew noisemakers, shouted through speakers and leaned on car horns” for three hours on a freezing-cold Thursday night outside the hotel where ICE agents were staying.
Additional noise demonstrations have targeted Hilton hotels in the Twin Cities since then, including one on January 25 where dozens of protesters faced off with federal agents. Some demonstrators reportedly smashed windows and hurled bottles at federal agents, who then deployed tear gas and flash-bangs to disperse the crowd.
Hotels have become part of the front lines of local resistance against immigration enforcement.
On the West Coast, Santa Cruz County residents led a peaceful protest outside a Hilton hotel in Scotts Valley on January 23. Sage Smiley, a 63-year-old Santa Cruz County resident who helped organize the demonstration, told the Prospect she hopes “that we recognize the power we have to effect change.”
Smiley said she had received a call from Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) to see if she would organize a protest against Hilton in her area; she obliged. In the days leading up to it, Smiley managed to get a handful of people to agree to come out. Her expectations were low initially, but she was pleasantly surprised when 100 or so people showed up to the protest. “We have a right to decide that we can live in a more compassionate and fairer world,” Smiley said.
These activists are continuing an effort that began last year in Los Angeles, the first site of the ICE campaign across America. The “No Sleep for ICE” actions fanned out around the L.A. metro area last June, determined to make immigration agents’ stay uncomfortable. But this has been taken to a new level in the months since, with some protesters seeking through protest and boycotts to deny ICE accommodation entirely, or at least make it painful for the hotels that accommodate them.
The movement has already seen some success. For instance, Sunrise Movement Twin Cities successfully pressured two hotels in Saint Paul to “pause their operations and close temporarily,” the group announced last week.
Neither of those hotels are owned by Hilton, which has found itself in the crosshairs of local residents who are unequivocally fed up with the hotel chain for its role in what they see as enabling state violence against their communities. Immigration agents have killed at least eight people and wounded nine more nationwide during their extended terror campaign, while causing at least 35 others to die in detention camps.
The Sunrise Movement has been mobilizing its members to support the wider pressure campaign against companies that do business with federal immigration authorities. Sunrise Movement NYC co-organized this week’s protest in Manhattan alongside Planet Over Profit, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and other coalition partners.
“The attack on the basic rights like freedom of speech, the right to due process, the right to gather and organize, jeopardize our ability to organize for any other issue, which is why it’s so necessary for us to come together and show solidarity … to fight the authoritarian regime and its corporate sponsors,” Sunrise Movement NYC Communications Director Michael-Luca Natt told the Prospect. “Immigrant rights are civil rights and immigrant justice is climate justice, so all the issues are tied together.”
The decentralized 50501 movement is planning to amplify those efforts on a national scale, launching a boycott campaign to pressure hospitality companies to stop providing accommodations to immigration agents.
“This is an economic pressure campaign,” said Gloriann Sahay, an organizer with 50501 who has been leading the effort. “The less [immigration agents] feel at home doing these operations, we’re hoping that will make it harder for them to operate.”
Although the boycott campaign is part of a broader push 50501 is coordinating against all kinds of businesses that support federal immigration authorities, organizers are encouraging community members to take direct action against hotels that house immigration agents. In addition to protests, 50501 has called for creative dissent, whether that means calling hotels directly to complain, leaving one-star reviews, or booking and then canceling reservations.
“There’s so many ways to get involved,” Sahay said. “I just would encourage everyone to take that leap.”
50501 is also organizing the ICE Out of Everywhere National Day of Action on Saturday, January 31. The goal is to have communities in all 50 states come together to protest outside federal immigration facilities, including detention centers, field offices, and more.
For its part, Sunrise Movement NYC is encouraging its members to mobilize in any way they can this Saturday and in the coming months.
“We’re looking to build a broad coalition to mobilize people in noncooperation that goes beyond just this week but for the months to come,” Natt said. “While many have called for a general strike on this Friday we … are also building a consensus to join labor unions in a mass general strike on May Day.”
That strike is being organized by the May Day Coalition, which counts Sunrise Movement and 50501 among its members. Broadly made up of unions, advocacy groups, and community organizations, the people-powered coalition has also focused its organizing efforts on Hilton Hotels.
According to Sahay, the forthcoming mobilizations present a “huge opportunity” for unions that represent workers in hospitality, car rental and automotive services, airlines, and other industries to resist authoritarianism. “In order for that [general strike] to happen, we absolutely need union support,” Sahay told the Prospect.
As that support continues to materialize, Hilton and other companies serving immigration agents may want to take the time to reflect on Proverbs 4:16-17: For the wicked cannot sleep unless they do evil; And they are deprived of sleep unless they make someone stumble and fall.