Thursday night, anti-ICE protesters clashed with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the parking lot outside the agency’s field office in central Phoenix. At least one protester was detained and later released, and other protesters said ICE deployed pepper spray.
At one point, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes — who has been critical of ICE and whose office shares a parking lot with the field office — arrived to try to calm things down.
For months, weekly protests have occurred in front of the ICE field office on Central Avenue. The office is where ICE initially takes detainees before either releasing them or transferring them to larger detention facilities outside of the city. After an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis earlier this month, the protests at the field office have ramped up. Last week, protesters said, ICE agents put up yellow police tape to block them from the parking lot, and protesters attempted to block ICE vans from entering the lot…