Watch: Anti-ICE Protesters Accidentally Infuriate Immigrants While Blocking Brooklyn Bridge
There are few things New Yorkers enjoy less than sitting in traffic. Apparently, some anti-ICE protesters decided Wednesday that the city needed a little more of it.
As reported by WABC, demonstrators blocked traffic on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge on Wednesday afternoon, leading to approximately 14 arrests.
The protesters were demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement leave New York City, citing a shooting involving an ICE agent in the Marble Hill neighborhood earlier this month.
WPIX reported that demonstrators carried a sign reading “Stop Shooting Us” while chanting and clapping in unison.
The demonstration began disrupting traffic around 12:30 p.m., with authorities reopening all lanes around 1:30 p.m., WABC reported.
And while the protesters presumably hoped to draw attention to their grievances with immigration enforcement, they also managed to draw the ire of some of the very people they ostensibly wanted to defend.
WARNING: This video contains language that some viewers may find offensive.
NOW: Drivers REACT as Anti-ICE Protesters block ALL Entrances to the Brooklyn Bridge on Manhattan side. https://t.co/Jv3lc71oev
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) October 28, 2026
“We need to go to work,” one annoyed motorist said.
“It’s time to pick up our kids from school,” one person told anti-ICE agitators.
Another perturbed motorist even told the protesters that he “agreed” with them — but he still had places to go.
Yes, among the mass of annoyed New Yorkers captured on video by reporter Oliya Scootercaster, there appeared to be a number of working-class immigrants.
And there truly is something rather ironic about immigrants getting caught in the crossfire of an anti-ICE demonstration.
After all, whatever one thinks about immigration enforcement, it’s difficult to see how preventing hardworking New Yorkers from getting where they need to go advances the conversation.
And that’s the fundamental problem with these kinds of demonstrations.
Look, there are legitimate conversations to be had about ICE — and any branch of the government, for that matter. The instant a branch of government is treated as infallible is the instant we take a step closer to actual authoritarianism.
Those conversations might be uncomfortable. They might expose deep disagreements about immigration policy, law enforcement, and the federal government’s responsibilities.
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But they’re conversations worth having.
What exactly does blocking one of America’s most famous bridges accomplish toward that end?
The protesters certainly attracted attention, and their disruption made the local news. But attention and persuasion are two very different things.
If the argument is that ICE needs meaningful reform, make that argument. Explain what needs to change, why it needs to change, and how those changes would work.
Simply demanding that we “abolish ICE” while inconveniencing ordinary people is a considerably different proposition.
And when those ordinary people include immigrants trying to get through their day, the disconnect between a protest’s stated purpose and its practical consequences becomes particularly noticeable.
There is a difference between raising awareness about a serious issue and making yourself impossible to ignore. Wednesday’s demonstration certainly accomplished the latter.
Whether it persuaded anyone to reconsider their views on immigration enforcement is another matter entirely.
New Yorkers already have plenty of reasons to complain about traffic. Giving them another one hardly seems like a promising way to win any argument.
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