Protests can come in many forms. To protest the deaths of two immigrants recently killed by ICE—Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Guerrero—Ann Arbor Indivisible held a silent march through the sidewalks of Main Street, with their bustling summer evening tables on Saturday. July 25.
They marched single file, holding black signs, each with a photograph of someone who has died due to an incident involving ICE—which recently saw its budget increase $70 billion to over $200 billion points out the Brennan Center for Justice. They also had the names, age, and date of death for each person. Because of the single file arrangement, it took four minutes and 16 seconds for the last protestor to leave the front of the Ann Arbor Federal Building, following the leader, who by then was already turning right at the corner of Main and Liberty.
A silent march
Colleen Murphy, an organizer at A2 Indivisible, told Current that they decided to go for a silent march “because I feel like not enough people really recognize how many people ICE have killed.” It’s her opinion that the media doesn’t show the faces of people who have died in ICE custody constituently enough “so we wanted to show the faces of each person.”
Arajuo was an immigrant from Mexico working on getting his paperwork finalized so his presence in the US could become legal after three decades working here, having raised three children up through college. The 52 year old was killed in Texas. The Trump Administration claims that Arajuo used his vehicle to menace ICE officers, but this has been disputed and it appears that no body cam footage exists.
Guerrero had come to the United States from Colombia legally, according to the New York Times. The 26 year old father of a three year old was killed in Maine when ICE confronted him.
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He was also killed in a traffic stop, which the Trump Administration had ordered ICE to scale back earlier this year due to the protests that resulted from the killings of Renee Nichole Good and Alex Pretti. But according to The Atlantic, that decision was reversed this month.
The AA Indivisible led march included over a hundred people. They marched for eight blocks, from the Federal Building, through the main part of Main Street, and back. Mayoral democratic socialist candidate Yousef Rabhi was among them.
“It’s just the beginning,” James Blackburn, a Florida resident who used to live in Ann Arbor and says he still regularly comes back to Ann Arbor every summer, said before the march started. He says he has been to a half-dozen protests and that demonstrations like Saturday’s are “just one tool to spread the word, and also encourage involvement. This is somewhat superficial, but it spreads the word.”
Public reactions
Almost none of the people in Ann Arbor’s bustling downtown had anything negative to say about the march. Most ignored it, but there were a few positive reactions.
One of the marchers was the Reverand Barry Osterbur, a retired pastor who participated in the march and is affiliated with Holy Faith Church in Saline, said.
He said he has been to a dozen protest and goes “to be a sign of the presence of people that are caring about things that are happening in front of people, so that they notice, they see. I was hopeful tonight that some of the names made an impression on the people on the sidewalks, and that they might go home and google what’s going on and maybe get a little more concerned about what’s happening.”
When asked what he wanted to see happen next in the US, he said “I think a big turnout of voting, because voting, in my humble opinion, is very secure. I’ve taken part in calling phone banks over the last three cycles and its, in my understanding … it’s [a] secure thing to do.”
Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!
