On the evening of Friday, July 17, community members gathered outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn's Sunset Park for a speak-out protest under the banner that has become the movement's rallying cry: “No more ICE murders.”

Organized by the New York Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NYAARPR), joined by Brooklyn Against War, NYC ICE Watch, and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the action drew passersby and commuters into a crowd of voices demanding justice for the dead, freedom for the detained, and an end to the federal machinery that has killed at least 75 people since January 2025.

As rush-hour traffic roared past on the Gowanus Expressway and Brooklyn's 3rd Avenue, protesters unfurled a massive banner reading “ICE out of everywhere.” Drivers responded with a chorus of honks — solidarity delivered in the language of the road.

The Names That Demand Justice

Ruby Doswell, an organizer with NYAARPR, named the dead directly:

“We are the New York Alliance, and we are out here to say we reject the idea that communities are made safer by armed immigration raids. We reject the criminalization of immigrants who come to this country to work, support their families, and build a future. We demand accountability for the deaths of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, and Juan Jairo Coronilla Duran.”

The names of the dead were not abstractions. As we documented when more than 330 cities held vigils across the country on July 25 for the national #ICEOut day of action, these are fathers, construction workers, cleaners, delivery drivers — people killed by ICE officers during traffic stops, at Home Depot parking lots, and in their own communities. The Brooklyn protest was the local manifestation of a national movement that refuses to let the dead become statistics.

Exterior view of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a large modern prison building with fencing along the street in Sunset Park

Inside the Walls: 200 Detained Without Charges

The Metropolitan Detention Center currently holds at least 200 immigrants, many of whom have not been charged with a crime. Jamie Kowalski, an organizer with NYAARPR, described conditions inside:

“The Metropolitan Detention Center is notorious for being dark and overcrowded, for mold and fungus, and poor quality food, for non-functioning toilets and unsanitary conditions.”

“We demand free all ICE detainees from the MDC!”

The facility has a long history of documented abuses. Lawmakers have been denied access. Immigrants detained inside have reported inadequate medical care, lack of legal representation, and conditions that amount to punitive warehousing. The MDC is not a correctional facility — it is a holding pen for a federal deportation machine that operates with minimal oversight and maximum cruelty.

The Domestic Arm of Imperialism

Briony Smith, an organizer with Brooklyn Against War, drew the connection that mainstream coverage consistently misses: that ICE repression is not isolated from US foreign policy — it is its domestic expression.

“Repressive immigration enforcement is not arbitrary or isolated. It is part of a larger agenda that looks to expel, in particular, Latin American people but not exclusively, at the same time that the Trump administration attempts to extend its tentacles throughout Central and South America to suck dry the resources of sovereign countries, in order to enrich American billionaires.”

As we reported in our investigation into the return of Juan Orlando Hernández — the convicted drug-trafficking former Honduran president pardoned by Trump while his National Party colleague took Honduras's presidency with US backing — the machine that detains immigrants in Brooklyn is the same machine that props up narco-states abroad. The ICE raids in Sunset Park are connected to the $2.2 billion corruption machine in Washington. They are two faces of the same empire.

Large crowd of protesters marching across the Brooklyn Bridge carrying signs and banners during an anti-ICE demonstration on January 19, 2026

The Movement Grows

The Brooklyn protest was not an isolated event. It was part of a wave of escalating direct action against ICE that has swept New York City and the country in 2026:

• In May, nine people were arrested during a protest outside Wyckoff Medical Center in Brooklyn after ICE arrested Chidozie Wilson Okeke, sparking clashes between agents and demonstrators
• NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani renewed his call to abolish ICE following the hospital protest
• More than 330 cities held coordinated #ICEOut vigils on July 25, with Pasadena's Home Depot becoming a memorial site planted with white crosses bearing the names and photos of the dead
• Federal Plaza in Manhattan has been the site of repeated mass demonstrations
• The resistance has formed in Brooklyn, in Houston, in Maine, in Colorado — everywhere ICE operates

The organizers on Friday made clear that the struggle is far from over. They vowed to continue building pressure until ICE is removed from every corner of the city.

Key Facts: Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn

Organizers and Speakers

The Dead Named at Brooklyn

These names are being read aloud in cities across the country — from Pasadena's Home Depot to Brooklyn's MDC. The movement to end ICE violence is building, and it is naming the dead.