We, undersigned, call on the City of Columbia and Richland County to protect Columbia residents from the violence of ICE and DHS. We condemn the recently announced plans for ICE's Office of Principal Legal Advisory division to occupy offices in 1441 Main Street, in close proximity to student housing and Prisma Health Baptist Hospital. 

This move comes in the midst of an aggressive escalation from the Trump administration against our immigrant communities and the working class as a whole. The Trump administration has nefariously made plans to infiltrate every major city of the U.S. with its secret police, and its intentions have been made clear in other major U.S. cities: DHS is gobbling up real estate to position itself near schools, places of worship, hospitals, daycare centers, restaurants, and other key locations in a community. Aiding in its rapid and quiet infiltration, the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages federal buildings, capitulated to ICE when it bypassed the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA), which requires open competition and a bidding process for acquisition of federal building and lease procurements. This directive allowed the agency to expand to Columbia, seemingly under the nose of local elected officials and law enforcement, who allegedly "had no idea" about the happenings in the city they have a duty to protect.

Simultaneously, the State House of Representatives introduced a bill this session, House Bill 4764, which, if passed, would expand and require local law enforcement to enter 287(g) agreements, deputizing them to work on behalf of DHS, an agency that violates people's constitutional rights with impunity, operates outside of their jurisdiction, and ignores due process. This bill would effectively turn our local law enforcement departments into an arm of the federal terror machine. 

This is not about keeping our communities safe. It is about terrifying and destabilizing our communities and eroding any existing guardrails that would protect the working class from this level of government repression and corruption.

We call upon the Columbia City Council, Mayor Daniel Rickenmann, and the Richland County Council to immediately respond within their authority to pass city and county ordinances to end ICE activity in Columbia and Richland County.

Our demands:

• No ICE offices in Columbia or anywhere in South Carolina
• No ICE/DHS in local jails and the immediate termination of the existing 287(g) agreements
• Immediate action by the City of Columbia and Richland County Councils to create ordinances requiring compliance with all federal legislation regarding federal lease procurements
• City of Columbia and Richland County Councils advocate against HB 4764

Trump's rogue paramilitary allotted nearly $80 billion in funding to ICE. Our government is spending unfathomable amounts of money on a domestic terror organization instead of providing for the people's needs. We demand ICE out of Columbia and ICE out of South Carolina!