GREENFIELD — A group of protesters gathered inside the entrance of The Home Depot on the Mohawk Trail just before 2 p.m. on Tuesday to protest what they feel is the company’s complicity in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids at their store locations.
The group of roughly a dozen protesters first gathered with a variety of signs decrying ICE and urging The Home Depot to condemn ICE. The protest started with a stand-in, followed by a walk through the store to the exit.
Organizer Patricia Tierney and protester Molly Cantor spoke to management about the protest, handing over a sheet of paper with a list of requests, including to stop assisting ICE in raids in their parking lots and stores; to stand up for customers and workers; and to “Say NO to ICE.”
The letter was addressed to Ted Decker, president and CEO of The Home Depot, and Jared Pare, manager of the Greenfield Home Depot. When asked for comment about the protest, Home Depot Assistant Manager Victor Curleo declined to comment.
Inside the store, Tierney said the group was asked to leave, so they exited and stood outside the store briefly before being asked to vacate the property. She spoke with two managers outside the store and said their interactions with staff were “very positive.”
Tierney explained that the demonstration at Greenfield’s Home Depot was part of a larger nationwide protest called the “Free America Walkout,” which called upon people to walk out of their jobs, schools and stores at 2 p.m. on Tuesday to protest ICE and the Trump administration. At the protest in Greenfield, Tierney said the effort follows a non-violent structure of protest to put pressure on the “pillars that support this regime.”
“What we want to find out [is] why is Home Depot facilitating ICE raids in their parking lots,” Tierney said. “They just asked us to leave the store and that the plaza belongs to them, and we’re leaving now, and we want to know if they can do that to ICE.”
As reported by the Associated Press, The Home Depot locations have been the site for some ICE arrests. U.S. Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller said the agency should focus on the store chain because of its perceived connection to migrant laborers in May 2025. The Home Depot has told other media outlets that the company does not work with ICE, and has taken steps to keep stores safe, a December statement to KTLA states.
The Greenfield Recorder reached out to The Home Depot’s press office for comment, but did not receive a response by press time.
Protester Anne Kaplan said she’s “upset and appalled” by what is happening in the United States, and that she thinks people are living under an authoritarian government, with congressional representatives not doing enough to stop the Trump administration.
“I’d like them to see [The Home Depot] stand against the current administration and stand against ICE, tell ICE that they’re not welcome on their property and that they’re not going to accept orders,” Kaplan said.
Cantor said she feels The Home Depot needs to issue a statement condemning ICE.
“ICE can come onto the property of a store [and] Home Depot can’t really stop them from doing that,” she said, “but Home Depot can make statements that they do not accept them coming, or [condemn] them coming and their activities.”