Anti-ICE Stickers and a Jericho Walk in New York City

Voices

Nov 1

On a recent trip to New York City, I headed downtown to look for political stickers like I always do when I’m visiting the Big Apple. I figured there would be street art ephemera dotting the southern tip of Manhattan after the No Kings protest on October 18, 2025, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) armed raid along Canal Street less than a week later.

During the October 22 raid, fifty federal agents “descended on a stretch of the street that is famous for the African men and Chinese women who illegally sell bootleg luxury merchandise to tourists,” according to an article in The New York Times. Nine men were arrested for deportation, along with five other protesters. “The militarized raid, which took place in a neighborhood crowded with tourists, commuters, and businesses, was one of the biggest and most publicized in New York City since President Donald Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown began earlier this year,” reported Isabelle Taft for New York Focus.

The following day, I took the E train down to Fulton Street and walked north on Broadway without any specific plan in place. I was curious what sorts of stickers would be out on the streets these days. Overall, I’d say the stickers were surprisingly apolitical given the current divisions in the United States these days. (Thanks, capitalism!)

I saw one of many “No Secret Police!” hand-drawn stickers along Broadway, including this one on a subway stairwell across from City Hall. Sticker artists often use the cheap “Hello-My-Name-Is” stickers to spread their messages, and on this sticker, “No ICE” is highlighted in red.

Anti-ICE stickers along Broadway in Lower Manhattan.

A few blocks up the street, I found the “ICE Out of NYC” sticker, which includes an image of the Statue of Liberty and a QR code that links to a website for an impressive coalition of groups called Hands Off NYC. They describe themselves as “a coordinated effort supported by unions, faith leaders, and community groups, standing together in nonviolent resistance.” The website lists over 125 organizations of all stripes joined together: Indivisibles, immigrant services and defense groups, housing justice groups, churches and temples, green groups, trade organizations, legal organizations, writers and poets, etc. The coalition states,

“American cities are under attack by the Trump administration. Instead of investing in schools, hospitals, and public services, taxpayer dollars are being spent to send National Guard troops and ICE agents into our communities—ripping families apart and targeting working people. New York City has been directly threatened.
We believe tax dollars should strengthen schools, hospitals, and safe neighborhoods — not build detention centers and tear families apart. Occupying our cities is not “law and order,” it’s an assault on our rights and values, including our First Amendment rights to freedom of the press, to free speech, and to peaceably assemble. We pledge to organize together, build local power, and stand in solidarity with every city facing military occupation. Our cities and our people are our greatest strength.” -Hands Off NYC Statement

A little further north, I saw a woman standing in front of the actual ICE building at 26 Federal Plaza. I had stopped to photograph a sticker, and I asked her what she was looking at. The building was surrounded by scores (hundreds?) of metal barricades, and a handful of officers stood together talking out in front, but it was otherwise pretty quiet.

The woman told me she had come to join a Jericho walk. Every Thursday from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., community faith leaders and others perform a symbolic walk seven times around the building and stop in front to pray for those detained. One man blew into a shofar, used historically and today as a call for introspection and repentance.

Jericho Walk in front of the NYC ICE building.

Jericho walks in the contemporary era date back to at least 2018 when people across the United States joined a National Day of Action against unjust detentions and deportations. According to the American Friends Service Committee, “The Jericho walk draws inspiration from the biblical story in which people marched around the city of Jericho seven times, causing its walls to fall. Today, the Jericho walk is a silent, peaceful action—open to people of all or no faiths—to bring down our unjust immigration system.”

Some have called 26 Federal Plaza a trap as asylum seekers come to immigration courts in the building for routine check-ins and hearings. Andrew Rice and Paula Aceves of New York Magazine (linked in this paragraph) write, “They go into the federal building holding papers—bureaucratic immigration forms and court summonses—hoping for a measure of due process. Some leave the courthouse with a hearing date set months or years from now. Others disappear into ICE’s prison system.”

I didn’t stay long, but what I found alarming as I was leaving were the rows and rows of metal barricades out in front of the building set up in such a way that would accommodate lines of people. Was that normal? I don’t know.

A comment from New York City Councilmember Christopher Marte stayed with me, though. “[The raid on October 22] looked like a practice, to figure out how to do this in New York City.”

A few other stickers photographed during my visit advertised the No Kings protest and a protest scheduled for Washington, DC, in early November 2025. Other stickers disparaged Trump in one way or another.