US Politics
Project Salt: Anti-ICE protesters clog Target checkouts to purchase specific item after immigration raids
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Demonstrators clogged the checkout lines at a Target store in Virginia, using a single symbolic purchase to protest the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The grassroots activist group ‘Indivisible Charlottesville’ organized the “shop-in” on Valentine’s Day at a store in the city.
Photos from inside the retail store depict lines of shoppers whose carts were brimmed with salt containers — a clear nod to salt’s power to melt ice. After paying, the shoppers subsequently returned the items. Many demonstrators also held signs criticizing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Target.
In a post on Facebook, Indivisible Charlottesville demanded that the retailer end its “collaboration” with federal immigration authorities.
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Target, it said, “has allowed ICE and other federal agents to stage their Minnesota operations in their parking lots and permitted ICE agents to enter their stores to detain employees.”
This isn’t the first time Target — a top U.S. retailer operating close to 2,000 stores — has played host to such protests.
Last month, a group of people crowded into a Target store in Minnesota — the epicenter of Trump’s immigration crackdown — to slow the checkout process by buying and returning salt.
And, in early February, activists targeted over 24 Target stores nationwide, urging the retailer, headquartered in Minnesota, to speak out against the surge of immigration enforcement in the state.
Spokespeople for ICE and Target did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Independent.
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The retail giant first drew anti-ICE protesters’ ire soon after the Trump administration began sending waves of immigration agents to Minnesota, which led to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens: Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
In early January, viral video showed immigration agents detaining two Target employees at a store outside of Minneapolis. Both were American citizens, according to The Guardian.
A later video shows one of the individuals after he’d allegedly been dumped in a parking lot. “They threw me on the f****** ground,” the man states.
On January 11, Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino was seen patrolling a Target store in Minnesota, accompanied by several agents. Video shows them being heckled by demonstrators.
While many protesters have demanded that Target deny entry to federal agents without judicial warrants, legal experts say this would likely flout the law.
Anyone, including ICE agents without warrants, is allowed to access public areas of business, which include public parking lots and shopping aisles, according to The Associated Press. But, back offices and other generally inaccessible areas are not considered public areas.