Update on Jan. 31, 2025 @ 10:40 a.m.:
U.S. Rep. for Georgia's 9th Congressional District Andrew Clyde's team reached out to AccessWDUN with a comment Friday morning regarding Wednesday's protest.
Clyde's statement reads:
"I certainly support American citizens exercising their First Amendment freedoms. Nevertheless, I was deeply disturbed by the troubling messages on display in the heart of the Ninth District on Wednesday. Waving foreign flags and holding 'Abolish ICE' signs in the Downtown Square just hours after President Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law is utterly shameful behavior. I fully support the Trump Administration's historic mass deportation operation, and I'm working to ensure ICE and assisting agencies have the resources needed to complete the critical mission of quickly deporting criminal illegal aliens from our communities."
Original story published on Jan. 30, 2025 @ 6:30 p.m.:
After hundreds of people showed up to protest President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and ICE, U.S. Rep. for Georgia’s 9th Congressional District Andrew Clyde took to X to lambaste the protest.
“Hours after President Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law, protesters flooded the streets of Gainesville, GA—in my District—to oppose ICE’s mission to deport criminal illegal aliens,” the post reads. “Shameful. We will not forget the victims or stop efforts to protect American citizens.”
The post was made at around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday and was accompanied by a video atop the bridge spanning over Jesse Jewell Parkway showcasing the protesters holding up signs the day Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law.
“From Gainesville, GA protest: ‘Abolish ICE. Abolish borders.’ Ridiculous, dangerous, and utterly shameful,” another post at 3 p.m. on Thursday by him reads. “Thankfully, President Trump’s mass deportations are underway—starting with the removal of criminal illegals from our communities.”
The Laken Riley Act will require the Department of Homeland Security to detain anyone who “is “unlawfully present in the United States” and has been charged, arrested, or convicted of “acts that constitute the essential elements of burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.” It also included provisions for violent crime.
Protesters in Gainesville pushed against many of the narratives through signs. Some of those signs read “Home of the ‘brave’ yet immigrants have to live in fear,” “No human is illegal,” “Newsflash…we are all immigrants (except Native Americans),” and “Abolish ICE! We are not animals to be put in cages!”
Trump said on Wednesday that there are “30,000 beds in Guantanamo” to apprehend the “worst” undocumented immigrants according to the Associated Press.
The protest in Gainesville was one of the first in the country, with similar protests on Sunday in Lexington, Kentucky; Tuesday in San Jose, California; and one in Albertville, Alabama on Wednesday.
The Gainesville protest got a lot of traction online, being posted to Everything Georgia’s X account and Libs of TikTok’s X account, garnering thousands of likes each.
Clyde’s district covers Gainesville and Hall County all the way up to Union, Towns, and Rabun counties.
