Federal Agents Retreat From Immigration Raid In Upstate New York Amid Protests: 'Gestapo'

The operation took one man into custody, according to local outlet WXXI.

Federal agents pulled back from a raid on rooftop workers at a rental site in upstate New York on Tuesday morning, as protesters crowded the street outside the location and forcefully condemned their operation.

About 100 demonstrators joined the scene in Rochester, yelling “shame” and “Gestapo,” as immigration enforcement agents, some of which were masked, tried to arrest people working at the site, eventually forcing them to retreat, according to WXXI. The protesters clapped and made obscene gestures as the agents left, the local outlet said.

One vehicle belonging to U.S. Customs and Border Protection was left with four flat tires. It’s unclear how the tires were slashed. Protesters cheered as that SUV was driven away.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, acknowledged that slashing the tires of a federal agent’s vehicle could amount to serious wrongdoing.

“Which is why it’s pretty incredible that we are seeing that level of willingness to engage in pretty serious behavior in opposition to immigration enforcement,” Reichlin-Melnick wrote on X, formerly Twitter.