‘De-ICE Vancouver’ protest held outside Hootsuite headquarters

An anti-ICE protest outside Hootsuite's headquarters in Vancouver is pictured on Saturday, Feb. 21.

A second demonstration took place at the Vancouver headquarters of Hootsuite Saturday, demanding the tech company end its contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The “block party-themed protest” was put on by Democracy Rising, which held a similar rally last month. The organization says Hootsuite has neither cut ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement nor responded to its open letter to the company since, necessitating another protest.

“The biggest message here is for Canadian companies that claim to be part of our communities, that claim to be part of Vancouver, to drop their contract with ICE, to stop supporting ICE in an administration that is actively threatening Canadian sovereignty and threatening Canadians’ way of life,” Democracy Rising co-founder Kalifi Ferretti-Gallon told CTV News.

Hootsuite has declined interviews with CTV News, but said it respects people’s rights to “express their views peacefully and safely.”

In a statement addressing the controversy, CEO Irina Novoselsky said “what we are watching unfold right now is wrong,” referring to ICE’s mass deportation campaign in Minneapolis and the high-profile shootings of two U.S. citizens during its enforcement in the city.

She however defended Hootsuite’s decision to contract social media management services to the DHS, saying “our use-case with ICE does not include tracking or surveillance of individuals using our tools.”

Vancouver councillors Pete Fry and Sean Orr were in attendance Saturday, ahead of their motion calling for the city to ban ICE agents from being deployed to Vancouver during the FIFA World Cup, in light of an ICE division being sent to the Olympics in Italy.

This no confirmation ICE will have any involvement in Vancouver during the tournament, but the Green and COPE councillors want the city’s position known in advance, which would entail Mayor Ken Sim writing a letter to the federal government asking to ensure ICE won’t be welcome.

“People are watching very closely at what’s going on in the United States, and (if) they hear ICE is coming to Vancouver for FIFA, they’re going to be concerned, they’re going to be fearful,” said Orr.

“We’ve invested a lot of money in the success of the World Cup in Vancouver. Taxpayers in Vancouver have invested a lot of money. And as we can see, ICE is attracting the wrong kind of attention. We want our games to be an absolute success, and ICE has no part in it,” Fry told CTV News.