Anti-ICE protesters gather on Boston Common

Protesters gathered on Boston Common Saturday to demand Massachusetts end all cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and provide stronger protections for immigrant communities.

Demonstrators began arriving before noon amid bitter cold and blue skies, carrying signs and flags, chanting and singing in English and Spanish. A brass band set up in front of the State House gates as attendees poured out of Park Street station and began filling Beacon Street.

The protest comes as immigration crackdowns continue in Minneapolis, where federal agents shot and killed two people in separate incidents this month.

Army veteran Kristen Lancaster, 51, came to the protest from Cranston, Rhode Island, carrying a sign stating “community is our superpower.” She described the country as on fire.

“I'm a ‘74 baby, and so I grew up in the 80s and watched this stuff happen on TV. I learned about what's going on right now,” Lancaster said. “We're repeating history.”

With the park still covered in more than a foot of snow, the crowd spilled down Beacon Hill, lining the Boston Common sidewalks leading up to the State House.

Joskar Yanes, 20, of Medford, wrapped in an American Flag, played Yankee Doodle on a trumpet. He said earlier this month his cousin was detained by ICE.

“That kind of was like a pivot moment where I was like, I can no longer just stand back and watch this happen,” he said. “For the sake of my cousin — for the sake of all those who can't speak for themselves — I have to be here today.”

Protesters and faith leaders in Massachusetts have rallied against immigrant enforcement actions over the past week, with many calling on Gov. Maura Healey to take executive actions that would better protect communities.

Healey sharply criticized ICE in her State of the Commonwealth address, saying the agency’s actions make communities less safe.

On Thursday, Healey said she filed legislation that would bar federal immigration agents from entering spaces like schools, courthouses and hospitals in Massachusetts. She also announced she'd sign an executive order prohibiting ICE from using most state buildings and resources.

Saturday was not the first protest for demonstrators like Peter Cariani, 69, of Newtonville, who wore a tricorn hat and a sign depicting a cartoon President Trump holding the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty.

”I just think that the whole militarization of ICE and sending them into cities where they're not wanted is part of a theater of intimidation and cruelty,” Cariani said. “This is part of the fascist, dictator playbook.”

At another anti-ICE protest Friday afternoon, about a thousand people gathered in Copley Square. The event was part of a "national shutdown" that encouraged people across the U.S. to refrain from shopping, going to work or attending school.

Demonstrators crowded the steps of the Boston Public Library and stood on snow banks to condemn the federal government's immigration actions.

“Mass stands with Minn,” read Amanda Ferry’s sign, who rode the T in from Somerville.

Watching the Trump administration's crackdown in Minneapolis has been “exhausting, terrifying, frightening,” she said. “But also heartening. The wonderful people of Minneapolis have been standing up in a way that I did not anticipate. … I should have anticipated it.”

"The whole militarization of ICE and sending them into cities where they're not wanted is part of a theater of intimidation and cruelty. This is part of the fascist, dictator playbook.”

Peter Cariani

Speakers ranged from high school students who led school walkouts earlier Friday to U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat who recently traveled to Minnesota. Like Ferry, Pressley said while she witnessed a “state under siege” she also saw “radical love.”

To a roaring crowd, she called for the abolition of ICE, just as she had during her first run for Congress in 2018. Demonstrators later cheered for Joe Tache, an organizer in the Party of Socialism and Liberation running for the U.S. Senate.

“If all the ICE agents across the country didn’t show up to work tomorrow, nothing would change. Actually, our communities would be safer,” Tache said. “But if the transit workers, and the nurses, and the teachers … decide that we’re not going to continue business as usual until something changes, that is ultimate power.”

Ki-Jana Carter, a 30-year-old father, brought his 8-month-old son swaddled in a blanket. Despite the bitter cold, they were there to support Carter’s partner, one of the event organizers.

“As we’re raising him, we want to make sure he knows the values that we stand for,” he said. “We always want to bring him to things like this, even though he won’t remember this one.”