BALTIMORE — Shut it down, that's the message some Baltimoreans are sending to ICE in the city.
WATCH: City and community leaders call for Baltimore ICE office to shut down
For the ACLU, the effort starts with working to get rid of agreements counties have with ICE.
"We want to protect all of our communities and remind our leaders, our elected officials that those rights are sacred and we will always - the ACLU will always defend those," said Dana Vickers Shelley, Executive Director of ACLU of Maryland.
Thursday's conference was a part of a nationwide shutdown demonstration planned for Friday in response to Alex Pretti's killing in Minneapolis.
As far as ICE movements in Baltimore, speakers are outraged after seeing a leaked video from inside the Baltimore ICE field office.
The video shows a packed holding room full of detainees, many of them having to lie on the ground.
Councilman Mark Conway remembered how he felt when he first saw it.
"Horror that we could treat people with so little regard. No matter the circumstances for why they were picked up, no matter the circumstances for why they were, you shouldn't treat people that way," Conway said.
A DHS spokesperson sent me a statement in response to the video, saying,
“Due to a historic winter storm currently impacting much of the United States, widespread flight cancellations and severe weather conditions have significantly disrupted transportation, making it nearly impossible for ICE to safely transfer detainees from processing facilities like this one in Baltimore to long-term detention facilities as scheduled.
These processing facilities are meant to temporarily hold illegal aliens while they are processed before they are transferred to a detention facility. For the safety of flight staff, officers, and the detainees, ICE is keeping detainees at the holding facility in Baltimore until it is safe to continue flight operations.
The illegal aliens in our custody are provided with appropriate care, including food, blankets, water, and medical services.
ICE remains committed to upholding the safety and well-being of all detainees in custody while continuing to work diligently to resume normal transportation operations as weather conditions permit.”
But Baltimore resident Carrington Scott doesn't buy it.
"There's no all of a sudden just 'the weather." This system has shown time and time again before that leaked footage was out that they don't care for human beings, they gun them down in the streets, give them rough rides in vans, they snatch people," Scott said.
Councilman Conway calls on the city to divest pension dollars from any equities tied to private detention or immigration enforcement profiteers.
"Baltimore is not required to be a staging ground for cruelty. We're not required to cooperate with it. And we're not required to fund it directly or indirectly with public dollars."
He told WMAR-2 News that there's some legislation being worked on right now that will be coming out soon.
