Every Wednesday, the sidewalks in front of the Department of Homeland Security Field Office in Burlington are lined with hundreds of protesters waving signs expressing outrage and sadness over the Trump administration’s amped-up crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

And they’re joined by a passionate group of activists from Union Church in Waban.

“We have a lot of existing memberships with other church communities, and we essentially coordinate with a lot of them, and this became a great place to uniformly organize,” Union Church member and organizer Kent Wittler said.

On Saturdays in Newton, there are protests along the Newton Centre Green full of people opposing the Trump administration’s policies. But with things getting more intense as the snow melts and the temperatures rise, more people are taking the fight to DHS in Burlington, and the Union Church folks have joined them.

“I believe, both through faith and just from being a person of moral character, that there should be no one detained in unlawful ways,” Soo Laski said.

Her dad, church member Frank Laski, mentioned a young woman from Nicaragua who has become a member of the Union Church family, loved by the community, who was targeted by Homeland Security with a threatening letter last spring.

“In April, she got this letter saying, ‘Get out by May,'” Frank Laski said, shaking his head. “She was supposed to be here legally for a couple of years, but she decided, ‘If they don’t want me here, I’m leaving.’ She couldn’t go back to Nicaragua, but she found a way to get to the Dominican Republic. So she left.”

For more than a year, there have been reports of people being grabbed off the streets by federal agents, purportedly for not having proper authority to be in the United States, and several people have been killed—including multiple American citizens like Renee Good and James Petti in Minnesota—with no end or de-escalation in sight.

And this Wednesday in Burlington, speakers made a bold suggestion: They want the property owner, Robert Murray—who owns Café Escadrille and the building at 1000 District Avenue that houses the DHS Field Office—to refuse to renew the federal government’s lease there. Murray has been called out by activist and civil liberties groups for accusations of safety code violations in that building, where an untold number of detainees are reportedly being held in a basement.

Speaker and immigrant rights activist Alex Johnson called on Murray to “use his Third Amendment right to simply refuse to renew the lease.”

The Third Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the government from forcing property owners to house soldiers during peacetime.

“And how would we know about it? He can use his First Amendment right to speak up about it,” Johnson continued. “This is, in my opinion, the most certain way to remove ICE from this building. Because of all the problematic things this federal government has been doing, trampling on the Third Amendment rights of rich white men has so far not been one of them.”

Other speakers, including a man from Waltham, talked about working to keep ICE agents from courthouses in Waltham and elsewhere in the region.

Not everyone there was of a shared sentiment. There were a few—very few, as in half a dozen—counter-protesters showing support for ICE and President Trump.

PHOTOS

Protesters gather outside the Department of Homeland Security Field Office in Burlington on March 11, 2026. Photo by Bryan McGonigle

Alex Johnson speaks to a crowd of protesters in front of the Department of Homeland Security Field Office in Burlington on March 11, 2026. Photo by Bryan McGonigle

Protesters gather outside the Department of Homeland Security Field Office in Burlington on March 11, 2026. Photo by Bryan McGonigle

A counter-protester speaks to the crowd gathered in front of the DHS Field Office on March 11, 2026.

Protesters gather outside the Department of Homeland Security Field Office in Burlington on March 11, 2026. Photo by Bryan McGonigle