Immigrants’ rights activists protest ICE detention and discrimination outside Atlanta field office

On Thursday evening, April 17, a coalition of local advocacy groups and concerned neighbors rallied against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—as well as related forms of policing and discrimination—outside the ICE office in downtown Atlanta. This demonstration was one of many nationwide organized by Detention Watch Network’s Communities Not Cages National Day of Action.

“We got out here today with an urgency and purpose because this moment demands action across the country,” said Uche Onwa, Black Diaspora Liberty Initiative executive director. “The Trump administration is actively expanding the immigration detention system. Instead of rolling back, they are doubling down on detention, increasing ICE capacity to cage our people, ramping up raids, deportation and surveillance—and even targeting immigrant activists who dare to speak truth to power.” 

Onwa emphasized these choices as moral failures, violence targeting communities of color and marginalized peoples. He then shared his story of fleeing persecution in Nigeria and coming to the U.S. It was supposed to mean freedom, safety and protection, but he was instead locked in ICE detention, he said.

“I was shackled and dehumanized,” Onwa said. “Even when I was sick, my hands and legs were chained to a hospital bed. I survived months of abuse, medical negligence and psychological torment. I attempted suicide, and I know that so many others do not survive. I refuse to be silent while others continue to suffer. I fight for everyone, for Black, Brown queer and trans migrants who are still loved behind bars.”

“I’ve lived a long time, and I’ve never seen anything like this happen in the United States, and I’m terrified about what’s going to happen,” Montgomery said. “Who’s going to be next? Are there going to be United States citizens sent down there? He wants El Salvador to build five more jails, which is terrifying—we’re a country now that is sending people without due process to places where they’re going to die or live the rest of their lives.”

ICE detains Georgia resident Alma Bowman

One such case of a U.S. citizen recently detained without due process is 58-year-old Alma Bowman, whose story fellow Malaya Movement Georgia member Sam Hamilton told. (Hamilton also represents ACPC as in-house counsel.)

“Alma was born in the Philippines to a Filipino mother and a U.S. citizen father who served in the U.S. Navy,” Hamilton said. “Alma left the Philippines when she was 10 years old to live in Macon, Georgia, and she has been in Georgia ever since—almost 50 years. Alma has a U.S. citizen parent, which makes her a U.S. citizen. In spite of this fact, the U.S. government has refused to recognize her citizenship for years.”

Bowman was held in ICE detention centers across three states from 2017 to 2020, including Georgia’s Irwin County Detention Center, which Hamilton said fostered medical abuse, such as nonconsensual gynecological procedures. The government terminated ICE’s contract with this center because advocates, like those gathered on Thursday, spoke up, Hamilton explained. Bowman has been one such advocate. Alongside Malaya Movement, she has talked about her abuse at public events and shared vital information to help fellow ICE prisoners and their families.

“So Alma was able to go back to her family, but she was placed under an order of supervision, meaning she had to drive from Macon to Atlanta—two hours—every few months to check in here, at the Atlanta ICE field office,” Hamilton said. “For four years, Alma attended every single ICE check-in. But on March 26, 2025—just three weeks ago—Alma attended her check-in here inside this building in a wheelchair, because she had to go to the emergency room the week before.”

ICE personnel separated Bowman from her attorney and rolled her into a wall on the way to a van that transported her to Stewart County Detention Center, Hamilton said. She went on to link Alma’s story to American imperialism and capitalist gains, which Malaya Movement explicitly opposes.

“Malaya Movement urges the U.S. government to recognize Alma’s American citizenship, to free her from ICE detention, to free all people from ICE detention, and to shut down all ICE detention centers!” Hamilton concluded.

An interconnected struggle

Brandon, of the Atlanta Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, connected the struggle of imprisoned migrants to that of people of color and other oppressed groups consistently persecuted in the U.S. He said the history of terrorizing low-income communities of color and undermining their rights hits especially hard in Atlanta, where Fulton County Jail on Rice Street has earned a reputation as one of the most inhumane prisons in the country. 

Brandon also linked the struggle to the genocide in Palestine, where thousands of Palestinians have likewise been detained indefinitely without due process. He joined the call to release all ICE prisoners with amnesty and paths to citizenship, and said people everywhere have a moral duty to oppose fascism.

Palestinian local activist Jawahir Kamil Sharwany spoke firsthand to the universality of the Palestinian struggle.

“In the next four years, we’re going to dismantle the system—we’re going to shut down ICE!” Sharwany proclaimed. “We’re not giving up on anyone! When you detain one of us, you detain all of us. We are not the terrorists—you are the terrorists, the ones terrorizing our families, trying to dismantle us as human beings—but you cannot kill our soul.” 

Finally, Lí Ann Sanchez of Community Estr(El/La) spoke in Spanish about the plight of trans and queer migrants. Sanchez explained how these communities are suffering from attempts to criminalize and erase them, despite having helped build this country’s infrastructure and make its hotels, restaurants and more function. Sanchez said the real criminals are police forces like ICE who discriminate by inflicting violence, hunger and neglect, but the community won’t stop fighting, no matter how many people are detained.

“You’re not going to erase us,” Sanchez said. “We’re still here, and we’re not going anywhere.”