Two flights likely filled with immigrants being deported lifted off from Akron-Canton Airport Saturday morning even as about 200 protesters stood outside the airport entrance calling for an end to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The airport, about 15 miles south of downtown Akron, has become a major hub for an airline charter company used by ICE.
More than 130 Boeing 737 flights operated by Eastern Air Express have landed at Akron-Canton since April 20, sometimes to pick up people in restraints who have disembarked from a prison bus or unmarked vans.
Protesters with banners, homemade posters and the gigantic signs often used to line freeway overpasses stood on the four corners of the busy Lauby Road entrance to the airport for two hours Aug. 1.
Kimberly Schveder of Akron was among them.
“This is very personal,” Schveder said, explaining that she grew up near Lake County, which has a large population of immigrants who work in agriculture there.
Schveder’s best friend from childhood is Mexican American and, even though she’s a U.S. citizen, Schveder said she worries about her friend and her family amid ongoing ICE operations.
“I didn’t like what happened in the first Trump administration with migrants, caging them,” she said. “Now this is 10 times worse. I don’t like how people are being taken off the street with no due process.”
Additionally, Schveder said she has been rattled by Americans being killed by ICE agents in both Minnesota and Texas.
“It’s just very disturbing and un-American in my opinion,” she said “We’re a nation of immigrants.”
Those sentiments were common among protesters, who were focused on ICE, but on American democracy, too.
Two people protesting across the street from Schveder held up a banner that said: “This is the government our founders warned us about.”
Others read “Ice out,” “Immigrants are welcome here,” and “Stop ICE flights.”
Kathy Hanratty of Chardon attended the protest with Ohio District 14 Partners, a grassroots group that says it’s dedicated to protecting and strengthening U.S. democracy.
She said the group has held protests 73 weeks in a row in Mentor, a suburban community about 25 miles east of Cleveland.
Between 40 and 80 people consistently show up for the events.
“What we need is another No Kings march,” she said. “It brings people out and brings them together and lets them know something’s going on. We had 3,000 in Mentor for No Kings.”
Climate change is the issue that drew Hanratty into the protest movement, she said. But what’s happening to undocumented immigrants is a top issue, adding that she’s particularly concerned now for Haitians, who have been stripped of federal protection that allowed them to live and work in the U.S.
In Ohio, some local officials have said Haitians have helped bring Springfield back to life after the manufacturing crisis that hurt so many Ohio factory towns. About 12,000 to 15,000 Haitians now live and work in the city of 60,000 people.
“Pretty much everyone here, their parents or grandparents were immigrants,” Hanratty said, scanning the crowd of fellow protesters.
“This didn’t happen to our parents or grandparents,” she said.
Hanratty, wearing a “Due process for all” sign around her neck, said ICE is violating the U.S. Constitution when officers snatch people off the streets and deport them without access to the legal system.
“The Constitution doesn’t say due process for U.S. citizens,” she said. “It says due process for all.”
The Constitution’s 5th Amendment reads, in part, that no person should “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Due process was a repeated theme among protesters Saturday, some of whom came from as far away as Pennsylvania.
Protesting is a regular event for Burning River Brigade
Other protesters, like Matt Six, are part of Burning River Brigade, whose members have made news by standing on freeway overpasses and other places holding cheeky protest signs.
Within the last month, the group:
On Saturday, Six kept the vibe by blending pop culture with protest. He wore a ‘Star Wars’ inspired T-shirt that said “Rebel scum since 1977,” the same year the sci-fi classic was released and that Six was born.
He also carried a small U.S. flag and a homemade anti-ICE sign with a picture of Val Kilmer, the actor who played Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in military flight school drama “Top Gun.”
Six said he started protesting about 18 months ago.
After Trump was reelected, he watched the promised retribution campaign unfold, along with cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and the national parks.
“I said, look, I have to find a community,” Six said. He found one after going to hear The Dropkick Murphys, a left-wing, working-class Celtic punk band that celebrates pro-union values, anti-fascism, and vocal opposition to Trump and his MAGA movement.
There, Six said he met members of the Burning River Brigade and joined the cause.
“Now I feel like I’m part of something because our own officials aren’t doing anything to help us,” he said.
Retired Beacon Journal reporter and editor Doug Oplinger contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: ‘Stop ICE Flights’: About 200 protesters rally outside CAK
Reporting by Amanda Garrett, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Amanda Garrett, Akron Beacon Journal | USA TODAY Network
