HYATTSVILLE, MARYLAND—Today Maryland residents celebrated the sixth month of weekly protests against ICE, chanting “Ch—a la migra” and “Not another nickel, not another dime, No more money for ICE’s crimes” Forty residents of Hyattsville and Greenbelt picketed the METRO 1 building where ICE is trying to expand its personnel on the 3rd floor. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has steadily participated in these rallies and held our May Day rally at the location as well (CHALLENGE, 6/3/26).
Leading the fight to smash ICE
Today’s rally engaged representatives of multiple organizations in the area and eight members of PLP along with friends and neighbors who joined this event with literature and chants. A PLP speaker spoke about organizing in the transit union and workers refusing to drive buses that advertise the border patrol. We cannot let the capitalists succeed in using ICE to divide the working class and weaken our struggles through racist divisions. Keeping ICE out of the neighborhood is just one step towards ending capitalism’s rule and building a new society of equality. Another PLP speaker challenged the Hyattsville City Council members who attended to step up and use their tools to keep ICE from expanding in our community, and called on everyone to get a CHALLENGE, which headlined the Delaney struggle against the ICE-funded GEO detention center on the first page! Thirty CHALLENGEs were distributed to marchers and others who stopped by the rally.
Right now, the large area in METRO 1 remains empty, but residents are keeping the pressure on the building owner, the city, and the county to stop ICE in its tracks, rather than letting them set up shop a block from the immigration court.
Students at Prince George’s Community College as well as several Howard University students and local residents have taken the lead in organizing, including a student who had traveled to Delaney to participate in the anti-ICE action there. Their organizing secured $100,000 from the Hyattsville City Council to help victims of ICE in the city. One of the council members got a CHALLENGE about Delaney. We encouraged him to hold meetings in every ward to discuss the ICE issue and get more participation in determining what city residents could do to stop ICE.
Several PLP members talked with organizers about coming to some Party events and invited them to consider joining our Party. The risks and fears are great, but the alternative is worse.
Organizing for more than reform fights
Much work needs to be done to strengthen this fight, including more outreach to Hyattsville and Greenbelt neighbors. Recruiting these organizers to the Party requires more one-on-one discussions and planning this struggle together. But we have a bold and winning strategy: building towards a revolution to abolish wages, bosses, racism and sexism. Workers know how to run the factories, organize transit systems, clean office buildings and above all, how to work collectively to meet each other’s needs. The bosses know none of this, and only know about pumping profits out of our labor and using divisive tactics to keep us weak. They are doomed, and we must work to hasten their exit from society.
