On February first, Muscatine held a protest against ICE on Park Avenue near the Maverick gas station. Protestors and residents gathered with signs that read phrases like “no human being is illegal” and “America was built by immigrants.”
Though there have been many protests around the United States since the uproar of violence against citizens at the hands of ICE, having a protest in Muscatine, Iowa, is rare. Considering the town is rural and majority vote leans more conservatively.
Iowa senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst are both members of the republican party. Despite this, the protest managed to unite democratic and left-leaning citizens to bring awareness to the recent terror of ICE.
Alongside those who advocated against the deportations, Hispanic members of the community also attended the protest. In Muscatine, around 20% of the population identifies as white/Hispanic or nonwhite/Hispanic.
These minority groups, the Democratic-aligned citizens and the Hispanic population of Muscatine, gathered to protest the current state of the town and the country on Sunday afternoon.
