Protesters rage against ICE, Border Patrol recruiters in St. Petersburg, Florida

Lane DeGregory, Nicolas Villamil and Juan Carlos Chavez, Tampa Bay Times on Jan 13, 2026

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

They came bearing bullhorns and bongos, whistles, cowbells, maracas and signs. So many signs.

“ICE murders!” “How many people have to die?” “Justice for Good.”

By 11 a.m. Tuesday, two hours after U.S. Customs and Border Protection opened a recruitment event at the Hilton St. Petersburg Carillon Park, more than 100 protesters lined the hotel’s driveway, shouting as cars pulled into the parking lot.

“Shame on you!”

“Shame on Hilton!”

“Look at all these people signing up to rip children from their mothers!”

The border protection job fair came less than a week after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, drawing national outrage. Customs and Border Protection and ICE are different agencies under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, but they’re increasingly intertwined with recent immigration arrests. Many protesters at the hotel said Good’s death spurred them to turn out.

“We’re trying to get people to change their minds and see that ICE is wrong,” said Bilinda Stokes, 48, who drove with her husband from Bradenton. “We don’t need them in our community or our country. They’re only doing it for the money. Not for America.”

Security guards stopped vehicles coming to the event, and they only allowed people who had registered to enter the hotel. The fair, which promotes careers with retention bonuses of up to $60,000, will continue Wednesday. Tammy Melvin, a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson, declined to say how many people signed up.

Dozens of law enforcement officers were on hand, including Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gulatieri and St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway. Officers set orange cones along the street and made people move back from the driveway — including an older woman wearing a Handmaiden’s cape who didn’t want to budge.

Counterprotesters showed up carrying posters of four women they said had been killed by immigrants in the country illegally. Kaitlin Bennett, a conservative YouTuber, arrived with private security and wove her way through the crowd, challenging protesters to speak into her microphone, which was branded with her “Liberty Hangout” channel logo.

Bennett’s arrival shifted the focus of many toward her group and away from the cars arriving to the hotel. Her interactions with the protesters turned testy enough for officers to ask the two sides to separate. Yelling across the street through a megaphone, Bennett bemoaned former President Joe Biden’s immigration enforcement and defended ICE.

Holloway said his department was primarily concerned with protecting protesters and ensuring cars were not blocked from the hotel lot.

Gualtieri said the protest would be allowed to continue as long as demonstrators abided by the rules set by officers, but he said demonstrators should “know what you’re protesting against.”

“Because what they’re protesting against is not going on in that hotel,” he said, noting that Customs and Border Protection and ICE are different organizations, however intertwined they may be. “There’s not a single ICE person in that hotel.”

Gualtieri and Holloway both defended their cooperation with ICE through a program that trains state and local law enforcement officers to serve as immigration officers.

Pam Oloughlin, 66, a retired Navy pharmacist, stood with a friend near the edge of the crowd. They came, they said, “because we need to know we’re not alone.”

“I’m trying to save the world for my grandkids,” said Debi Havens, 67, who drove from St. Pete Beach. “We need to move forward and fix this country. It all makes me so sad.”

Many of the signs referenced Nazis and the gestapo. Someone set up a speaker and blasted the disco song “We Are Family.” Sirens screamed, airhorns screeched, people banged on plastic buckets.

But nothing seemed to deter the steady stream of mostly pickups and SUVs that poured into the parking lot.

Jeannie Marie Landeros Martinez, 48, wore a Mexican flag as a cape. “I am a good mother,” her sign said. “That’s why I’m here: For my Mexican-American kids.”

Her three children were born in the United States, but their dad, her ex-husband, came illegally. She wouldn’t let her sons, ages 20 and 17, attend Tuesday’s protest.

“They’re brown,” she said. “They’re not safe here. They’re not as safe as they once were. That poor woman was white and it happened to her!”

In Tampa, dozens of protesters, students and young local activists gathered near the University of South Florida’s campus for a rally arranged after the school briefly posted the recruitment event on its website.

USF later said it had not endorsed the event and that the federal agency would not be recruiting on campus, but organizers decided to host the protest regardless.

Mario Rodriguez, 23, said that fear and uncertainty caused by immigration policies is affecting the student population.

“No one is sure what could happen to them,” he said. “Reaching this point is a threat to democracy.”

_____