On Tuesday afternoon, Lower Manhattan was the scene of “Rage Against the Deportation Machine.”
Tom Morello, a member of the iconic band Rage Against the Machine, joined immigrant advocates in front of 26 Federal Plaza on May 12, where he sang in protest against ICE in New York City.
The immigration court located in Federal Plaza, in Lower Manhattan, has become ICE’s main operations center in New York for almost a year. Masked agents have repeatedly detained immigrants and entire families while they attended their mandatory court hearings. Since the summer of 2025, these operations have extended beyond the building’s hallways and into the streets, including a widely criticized raid on Canal Street in Chinatown and, most recently, the brutal assault of a man in Brooklyn.
Morello, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, assured that enough is enough and openly criticized ICE operations and President Donald Trump’s immigration offensive.
“A very close friend of my family was recently kidnapped by ICE. A hard-working, law-abiding grandmother returning home from shopping was attacked by government thugs, forced into an unmarked van, and deported without the slightest due process,” Morello said. “That immigrant grandmother never murdered 180 girls in Iran by bombing them. And that immigrant grandmother never sexually abused minors with Trump’s billionaire friends on Epstein’s island.”
Morello was accompanied by Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, and Allan Dabrio Marrero, who was detained inside the facility and spent five months in ICE custody.
Surrounded by signs with messages such as “Hands Off NYC!” and hundreds of protesters, speakers demanded the approval of the “New York for All Act,” a legislative proposal that seeks to prevent local police forces from collaborating with ICE.
Morello also expressed his support for the state initiative.
“New York for All is an inspiration and an example of how to confront this growing wave of state terror. It shows that we must together defend our neighbors, ourselves, democracy and justice, because no one will come to save us,” he said. “It is now or never. Therefore, today every artistic act is an act of resistance. Every truth spoken is a light in the midst of the approaching darkness. And let every song of freedom be a sign of hope for those who are willing to stand up and stop this madness. We live in times where ideas are treated as a crime, where gender is a crime, where skin color is a crime and where telling the truth is a crime, while true criminals comfortably toast alongside the dictatorship.”
In front of the 26 Federal Plaza building, Morello closed the demonstration by picking up his guitar and performing Woody Guthrie’s classic anthem, “This Land is Your Land.”
