This weekend, Californians across Monrovia and Burbank formed long lines outside of their local Home Depots — not to shop for the holidays, but to participate in a unique protest.
Led by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the protest involved customers buying and immediately returning 17-cent ice scrapers, a move that disrupted sales and led to a chaos of mass returns at registers.
It was a move meant to boycott the home improvement chain in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s increased presence at their stores.
Hundreds of people participated in the “ice scraper” boycott, which also involved picketing in parking lots with chants of “ICE, ICE, out of Home Depot!”
“The message is clear: Scrape ICE off your properties!” NDLON shared in an Instagram post. “This is a necessary escalation. Home Depot has ignored the harm for too long. We will not. ICE is escalating violence — so we’re escalating action.”
But protests weren’t just limited to the Golden State. Protestors also gathered outside of Home Depots in Charlotte, North Carolina — a city that has seen a surge of ICE raids in recent days.
“This isn’t just commerce, this is community survival,” Zamara Saldivar, an organizer for the Carolina Migrant Network, addressed the crowd at a Charlotte-based protest this weekend.
“Right now, the community is under threat. Since Saturday, we’ve received calls of increased enforcement outside of Home Depots across the city.”
This follows repeated calls for boycotts against Home Depot as ICE raids continue in Chicago and Charlotte.
On November 18, an X user alleged that Home Depot cooperated with ICE and “allowed them to work out of their parking lots.”
The company replied: “This is untrue – we aren't coordinating with ICE. We aren't involved in ICE activities, and we aren't notified when they are going to happen.”
However, Saldivar said that non-action is worthy of criticism in and of itself, and called on Home Depot management across the nation to keep immigration officers off their property.
“Home Depot has the responsibility and the opportunity to stand with the community,” she urged. “As a major gathering point, they are not neutral. Their stores are part of daily reality for immigrant workers and families. We need them to be partners in protecting the people who rely on these basics.”
“And we know one thing for certain,” Saldivar said, “silence from any of us allows harm to grow.”
You may also like: This church in Charlotte is training parishioners to protect immigrants during ICE crackdown: 'Loving your neighbors is holy'
Header image via Flickr / Mike Mozart (CC BY 2.0)
