Residents protested Tuesday night outside the Hyatt Place in Medford in response to reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents staying at the hotel. The demonstrations were a follow up to a similar protest on Saturday on the Hyatt’s premises.
The neighboring city of Somerville has seen increased detainments of immigrants and Latin Americans. Among them, Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk — who was arrested by ICE on March 25 and held in detention for 45 days.
Ron Newman, a Somerville resident who attended Saturday’s protest, heard about the demonstration from a Facebook post by Lucy Pineda, a coordinator from the group “Latinos Unidos en Massachusetts.” Protesters from the Service Employees International Union and Party for Socialism and Liberation were also present.
“[Pineda] posted about it a few hours before it started,” Newman said. “That night, it started at 8:30 [p.m.] and I just happened to see it on her page, and said, ‘I’ve got time to go to this. I’ve got to go to this.’”
Protesters carried signage targeting President Donald Trump administration’s broader deportation agenda and ICE’s increased presence in the greater Boston area. Signs carried messages including “STOP DEPORTING OUR FAMILIES” and “ICE OUT OF MA.”
Daven McQueen, a former visiting instructor at Tufts Experimental College, said that “the goal is really to draw attention to the fact that Hyatt is operating with ICE.”
A 12-year-old girl present at the protest first heard about the demonstration on social media, and attended with her father.
“I feel like their situation is very unfair. It has made my family feel really, really unsafe. It has made my life worse, and has put me into a very bad mood, and I am unable to do things that I used to be able to do before without being scared,” she said.
Tali, a protester, explained how the demonstration drew inspiration from tactics used in Chicago and Detroit. They explained that they participated to show their solidarity with immigrant communities.
“[Our goal is] to let it be known to all of the immigrants who are afraid to leave their homes right now, who are afraid to go to work … that there are people who are standing in solidarity with them,” they said.
They also explained that the Hyatt Place’s complicity in housing ICE agents is only a small part of the larger movement that this protest is serving.
“In all honesty, the Hyatt Hotel is the least important part of this equation,” they said. “The most important part of a demonstration is the people for whom it empowers.”
The protest ended at 10 p.m. Protesters then walked down Riverside Avenue and placed their signs down at Riverside Plaza.
Although McQueen said that ICE agents were staying at the hotel, the Medford Hyatt Place claimed to have no knowledge if that was the case.
The hotel also claimed to have received multiple noise complaints from the protest.
Protester Hersch Rothmell still believes the protests are overall successes.
“They’re successful in bringing people out, giving them optimism and hope that we can really make a real, material change in the war on immigrants,” he said.
A follow up protest is scheduled for Saturday.
