Protesters across Chicago and Illinois recently gathered outside AT&T stores, urging the telecom giant to end contracts with agencies backing the Department of Homeland Security’s controversial ICE raids.
Protesters staged nonviolent demonstrations at 17 AT&T locations across Chicago and Illinois, urging customers to hold off on upgrading products or plans until the company ends contracts with agencies supporting ICE raids, according to a press release. The actions respond to AT&T’s multimillion-dollar agreements with DHS, Customs and Border Patrol, and ICE, including a $146 million contract signed in September 2024.
“No one can reach their full potential while corporations like AT&T profit from contracting
with these agencies, gobble up tax breaks, and push for policies that also cut public programs that serve all of us,” People’s Action’s Sulma Arias said outside AT&T’s 15 S. Halsted location in Chicago. “No corporation should have this much power. If AT&T and their peers want our money, they have to act in the interest of our communities.”With English and Spanish ads promoting how AT&T is “building what matters,” protesters criticized the company for what they see as hypocrisy, marketing to everyday consumers while backing ICE raids that disproportionately impact communities of color.
“AT&T has the nerve to air ads in Spanish
while ICE and DHS are terrorizing our communities,” Lina Avalos, a member of The People’s Lobby, said. “We are here today, using our constitutional rights, to talk about how AT&T is selling out our communities to ICE and DHS–– or more cash in their pockets.” Avalos also spoke at the Halsted location.The protests follow a recent ProPublica investigation into a Sept. 30 ICE raid in one of Chicago’s lowest-income neighborhoods, where agents arrived in Black Hawk helicopters, broke down doors, destroyed property, used flash-bang grenades, and dragged sleeping residents—some unclothed—into the cold. Dozens, including children and U.S. citizens, were held in zip ties for
hours. Venezuelan migrants were targeted, accused of ties to the Tren de Aragua gang. While the Trump administration hailed the raid as a counterterrorism success, no charges have been filed against those detained.Protesters opposing AT&T’s contracts with ICE-supporting agencies aim to highlight how ICE has terrorized not only immigrants but also Black communities, violating constitutional and civil rights. They also point out that AT&T benefited from tax cuts under Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill and publicly supported it, despite deep reductions to funding for health, housing, and nutrition programs.
“By targeting people based on appearance and seeking to get rid of them, this administration is violating the American promise of liberty and justice for all,” Rev. Scott Aaseng, executive co-director of Unitarian Universalist Advocacy Network of Illinois, said. “And AT&T is helping them do it. As a communications company, AT&T should be helping bring people together, not helping ICE separate families and communities. I call on AT&T to do the right thing and end its contracts with ICE, CPB, and DHS now.”
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