WASHINGTON—One year into the second Trump administration, demonstrations against a presidency marked by intensified enforcement against illegal immigration took place across the United States, including the nation’s capital.

On the evening of Jan. 20, a few hundred protesters took to the chilly streets of Washington to denounce U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Led by a Marxist group, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and escorted by law enforcement, the demonstrators marched over a mile, ending just outside Lafayette Square near the White House.

Posts on social media showed actions planned for Jan. 20 throughout the country, from New York City’s Bryant Park to Chicago’s Federal Plaza and Los Angeles City Hall.

At least some were organized in conjunction with the Free America Walk Out, an event partnering with the Women’s March, and with affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union and Indivisible, among other organizations.

A website maintained by the Women’s March lists more than a dozen Jan. 20 demonstrations in Washington and nearby communities, including the protest involving the PSL.

Twin Cities Heat Up

The marches and walkouts come just weeks after driver Renee Good was shot and killed in her car by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis.

Video from the incident shows Good suddenly accelerate her vehicle toward Ross, who then fired repeatedly at her. Federal officials said the officer was hit by the vehicle and opened fire in self-defense.

That incident occurred amid a surge of ICE agents in the Twin Cities, spurred at least in part by investigations into alleged welfare fraud committed primarily by Somali immigrants.

In the days after the Good shooting, anti-ICE demonstrators turned out in Minneapolis by the tens of thousands. Some protested and even attacked hotels they believed were hosting immigration law enforcement. Others have targeted what they believe to be ICE operations by blowing whistles to alert people of the officers’ presence.

On Jan. 18, chanting demonstrators disrupted a service at a St. Paul church where an ICE field director is a pastor. They were joined by former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who livestreamed the event.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon announced plans to charge those who rushed into the Cities Church building, suggesting that charges could potentially be leveled under the FACE Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act.

ICE has continued to take action in the area amid the rallies and after a Jan. 16 ruling from a federal judge restricting agents’ use of pepper spray and other non-lethal weapons against non-violent demonstrators.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on Jan. 19 that DHS agents had apprehended more than 10,000 illegal aliens convicted of crimes.

The numbers are in keeping with a much larger trend of immigration law enforcement arrests, deportations, and other departures by illegal immigrants from the United States over the past year.

As of Dec. 10, 2025, over 2.5 million illegal immigrants had left the United States since the start of the second Trump administration, according to DHS.

The View From Washington

On the anniversary of Inauguration Day 2025, the evening’s anti-ICE demonstration in Washington contrasted starkly with the larger and more chaotic activities that have unfolded in the Twin Cities.

The march, which remained peaceful, began as a rally surrounded on all sides by law enforcement.

In addition to the PSL activists, those on the ground included anti-war activist Medea Benjamin of Code Pink as well as a speaker representing a local Somali youth organization.

ICE operations were just one of multiple issues raised by protesters.

Speakers decried American foreign policy, including the recent ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

Several weeks after Maduro was captured by American Delta Force operators and taken to New York to face narco-terrorism charges, one man at the march declared that Venezuela’s left-wing Bolivarian Revolution is “won constantly.”

The throng of protesters on the outskirts of Lafayette Square did not appear to elicit a response from the White House, lit from below a few hundred yards away.