Nearly 1,000 Rally and March in SeaTac Demanding an End to ICE Incarcerations, Supporting Public Education, Student Safety, Public Workers

On a sunny afternoon, nearly 1,000 people gathered beneath the blooming cherry blossoms of Angle Lake Park, carrying signs with messages ranging from "Melt ICE" to "Support Immigrant and Trans Students" to "Power to the Working Class." All had gathered for a rally and march to the Federal Detention Center a little under a mile away, a protest organized as part of the nationwide "Hands Off" mass mobilization effort on Saturday, April 5.

As the range of signs suggested, the march and rally had four key demands: stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and detentions (or "Melt ICE" for short), fund public schools, support immigrant and trans students, and defend public workers and services.

Labor unions and worker activists from across different industries were out in full force at the SeaTac protest. Sponsors included Organized Workers for Labor Solidarity (OWLS), the Seattle chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI), the Seattle Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators (SCORE), Radical Women, and the Seattle Rideshare Drivers Association. Other unions and organizations endorsed and attended the protest, including the Highline Education Association (HEA), IBEW Local 46 Women's Committee, the Southeast Seattle Education Coalition, UFCW 3000, MLK Labor, Legacy of Equality Leadership & Organizing (LELO), and more.

With the placid Angle Lake as a backdrop, rally speakers decried the Trump administration's actions that have had drastic impacts on immigrant rights, public education funding, trans and immigrant student safety, and the accessibility of public services.

"In the Highline School District, the DOE [Department of Education] spends $29.5 million, of which $9 million … goes to feed children," said Jeb Binns, a Highline High School teacher and HEA president, in reference to the Trump administration's plan to dismantle the DOE. "And if we all of a sudden think that feeding children is not something that we should do, then we need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves."

Nearly every speaker pointed out how the liberation of all the impacted communities are "intertwined," and many union representatives and members of the Freedom Socialist Party called for further action with a general strike on May 1 (May Day).

After the speeches concluded, demonstrators marched (and, in some cases, rolled) and chanted to SeaTac's Federal Detention Center, led by OWLS and La Resistencia, a grassroots organization working to end the detention and deportation of immigrants. Before dispersing from the detention center, protesters chanted "Free them all" and "You are not alone" to those incarcerated inside. Their words echoed through the streets and across Angle Lake.