Philadelphia residents say if ICE comes to the City of Brotherly Love and acts the way it did in Minneapolis, there will be riots bigger than when the Eagles won their first Super Bowl.
Former and current residents of Philadelphia believe that ICE’s presence in Philly would be met with backlash, and not just because of the city’s hard Democrat leanings but because the city where people threw snowballs at Santa Claus has a reputation for being, well, feisty.
An older resident of Philadelphia, Yvonne Cheeseman, said, “it would be met with humongous protests and intense legal battles between the city of Philadelphia and the federal government.”
Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti were gunned down by ICE agents during protests sparked by aggressive ICE tactics in the city. Minneapolis officials blasted the federal occupation and called for agents to leave the city, and the deaths sparked outrage nationwide.
The overall opinion of ICE and the Trump administration is unsurprisingly low in Philly. There is no end to that in the foreseeable future. ICE and Philadelphia officials communicated about the potential of ICE’s presence when Trump took office.
ICE has had a presence in Philadelphia, but not in the same way that it has in areas like Boston and Minneapolis. Philly’s mayor, Cherelle Parker, had agreed to increasingly police activity in regards to street crime and undocumented people.
After ICE agents were deployed to more than a dozen airports nationwide to help with TSA lines, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner warned that agents committing crimes at the airport would be put in “handcuffs” and “a jail cell.”
“If any ICE agent comes to Philly to commit a crime, then you can get the F— out of here,” Krasner said in an Instagram video.
ICE has been active in other areas of Pennsylvania and in the greater Philly area, such as Bucks County and particularly in lower Bucks. The former sheriff of Bucks County, Fred Harran, was open about working with the federal agency, but was voted out of office by a candidate who vowed to take the opposite approach.
However, Bucks is not Philly, and Philly residents have a reputation for making their voices heard when they feel ignored, upset or just want change.
A former Philly resident, Nick Bobst, age 19 who now lives in Bensalem, said, “I don’t know actually, Philadelphia can be very a complicated place.”
It seems safe to say that Philly residents aren’t likely to meekly accept ICE agents engaging in the kind of aggressive tactics they have pursued elsewhere.