LA Anti-ICE Activists Start Bizarre Protest by Buying Ice Scrapers Only to Return Them

MONROVIA, CA – Activists against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have reportedly cooked up a novel means of protesting both ICE and Home Depot, alleging an unfounded complicity between the brand and agency. Local reports out of Los Angeles say anti-ICE activists have started clogging up return counters at an area Home Depot by purchasing cheap “ice scrapers” and immediately returning them for a refund.

As previously reported in Law Enforcement Today, various Home Depot locations across the Los Angeles area have inadvertently served as a venue for a number of immigration enforcement operations in recent months. With the home improvement store effectively serving as a fish in a barrel scenario for ICE enforcement operations, anti-ICE activists have accrued a collective disdain for the brand due to a perceived tacit approval of said immigration enforcement actions.

A November 24th report from CBS News detailed the latest anti-ICE form of protest coming out of Los Angeles County, where demonstrators reportedly flooded a Monrovia Home Depot location to purchase cheap ice scrapers from the retailer only to immediately return them for a refund.

Palmira Figueroa, the communications director for the National Day Laborers Organizing Network and advocate for the Home Depot/ICE protest, said the purpose of the odd purchase/return demonstration is meant to symbolize how they “want to scrape ICE from our communities.”

“It's kind of symbolic,” Figueroa told CBS News, adding, “to use an ice scraper. Buy it and try to collapse their system for a moment, or for some time, with the group of people that are witnessing and are willing to stay, to stand up for the human rights of day laborers.”

The Monrovia Home Depot demonstration lasted for roughly an hour, with protesters lining up for returns and others parading through the store while holding up signs signaling their disdain for both ICE and the home improvement store. Apparently, the demonstration resulted in management shutting the store down for a brief period, which Figueroa found to be even more incensing since she claimed other Home Depot locations didn’t shut down the store when ICE arrests occurred within store front parking lots in months past.

“Oh, you can actually shut a store, right,” Figueroa stated, adding, “You can shut for this, but you cannot, you have not, shut them when an ICE raid and abuse is happening.”

Figueroa says she wants Home Depot to condemn the ICE enforcement actions that have coincidentally occurred outside the home improvement store locations, saying, “We know they can do that. They should speak out, reject the use of its stores and their sites for fear and violence.”

Generally speaking, private businesses cannot prohibit law enforcement – whether local or federal – from carrying out arrests on their property when taking into account basic legal frameworks around arrest warrants, probable cause, hot pursuit, and exigent circumstances.

This past August, Home Depot addressed the various immigration enforcement actions as well as the aforementioned legal reality, with the statement from the company reading, “We aren’t notified that ICE activities are going to happen, and we’re not requesting them. In many cases, we don't know that arrests have taken place until after they're over. We’re required to follow all federal and local rules and regulations in every market where we operate.”