More than 60 protesters rallied against a recruitment event hosted by Customs and Border Protection at the Hilton St. Petersburg Carillon Park hotel on Tuesday.
They chanted through megaphones, blared horns and blew whistles outside.
Some held signs decrying U.S. Customs and Enforcement (ICE), the main agency tasked with enforcing immigration laws within the country.
Several protesters also held up signs related to Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week.
While CBP is an agency separate from ICE, both are within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and complement each other in terms of immigration enforcement tasks.
CBP typically enforces immigration law at or near the border. It has the legal authority to operate within 100 miles of the border or U.S. coastline. Florida falls within this zone.
However, in President Donald Trump's second term, CBP has started playing a larger part in immigration arrests within the nation's interior as well.
According to the CBP website, the positions the agency is recruiting for include but are not limited to: air interdiction agent, border patrol agent, criminal investigator, customs and border protection officer and marine interdiction agent.
A protester, Allie M., who asked WUSF not to use her full name due to fears of retaliation from counterprotesters, said she's outraged at the way immigration officers have treated immigrants and protesters.
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"No one should have to not know what happened to their family. No one should have to be scared to leave their house. And that's happening everywhere, all over across the country," said Allie.
Allie also criticized the amount of training ICE agents receive for their jobs.
"Very minimal" training for officers
To meet the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts, training for ICE officers have been shortened.
"The training is very minimal, the restrictions are so minimal, like it doesn't take much to be an ICE agent, and that should tell you something," said Allie.
Another protester, Bilinda Stokes, said she drove from her home in Manatee County that morning to participate in the protest.
"I have two kids at home. I don't want them to ask me in 10 years when our country has collapsed, what did I do during this situation?" Stokes said. "I want to come out here and stand up for what we believe. We're all humans. They're not treating even Americans like humans anymore."
Stokes said she's lived in Florida for 15 years and once supported Gov. Ron DeSantis, but her views have changed.
"I thought he was doing a great job, and then, next thing you know, he has followed the cult of our leadership, our administration, and pretty much done whatever they've asked him to do," she said.
More than 20 Pinellas County sheriff's deputies and St. Petersburg police officers monitored the event.
Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said people can continue to protest as long as they remain on the right-of-way or public areas, and off hotel property.
Gualtieri also drew a line between ICE and CBP.
However, several protesters, including Stokes, said the difference "didn't matter."
"It doesn't matter whether you have Homeland Security or ICE or border patrol on your shirt. They're all the same," Stokes said.
Protest near USF campus
Just north of the University of South Florida's Tampa campus, another group of protesters spoke out against immigration enforcement on Tuesday.
The protest was initially organized due to a post for the CBP recruitment that appeared on USF's jobs website, Handshake.
A USF spokesperson clarified that the university had no ties to the recruitment effort and that it was "always an external event" off campus.
The original post stated that the location of the recruitment event would be sent to those who signed up.
"Like many other activities, this event was posted on Handshake, USF’s online career management platform used to connect students and employers for job and internship opportunities," read the university's statement. "The platform allows external employers to post information about their events, as they may be of interest to the USF community. Sharing information about these events does not constitute university sponsorship or endorsement of the event."
By Monday, the post was removed from the Handshake website. A representative from USF's Center for Career & Professional Development said the post had automatically expired and was not manually removed.
Protest organizers said they still chose to hold the rally because CBP has been on campus for career events in the past.
The agency participated in recruitment events on campus as early as 2018 and, most recently, last fall, according to the career center representative.
"We fully stand against that," said Vicky Tong, who is with the group Tampa Bay Students with a Democratic Society.
USF police also participate in the 287(g) program with ICE, which allows officers to carry out limited immigration enforcement tasks.
"It's putting our immigrant communities in danger. It's putting international students in danger, and it makes them feel very unsafe, especially because this is supposed to be a university, this is supposed to be a place of learning," said Tong.
