California has shown that it’s not just people who are angry by ICE presence, but also businesses. When individuals have support from local businesses, it truly feels like a community coming together for one another. When a woman saw that a California business had a No-ICE sign posted to their front door, she was pleased. It shows ICE that the people – and the businesses around them – aren’t afraid of them and won’t let hate win.
JJ (@jjtheworldwidetraveler) posted a video on TikTok titled, “Businesses in Cali are fed UP with ICE.” She videos a business from her vehicle, zooming in so that you can see the sign on their front door. When she zooms in on the sign, you can see that it reads “NO ICE ACCESS IN THIS BUSINESS”. You can also read “this is a private business” and that not everybody is permitted access.
As you read further down, you see “IF YOU ATTEMPT TO ENTER THIS BUSINESS WITHOUT A VALID JUDICIAL WARRANT, YOU WILL BE ASKED TO LEAVE.” This business truly means business! As JJ says, “businesses in California are putting their feet on ICE’s neck rn.” The fact that this business requires agents to jump through legal hoops means they probably won’t. If more businesses took action like this, we could see some serious change. Maybe there would be fewer raids on major businesses. This means fewer people being taken from their homes just because they chose to show up to work.
Commenters agreed that this is a great way for local businesses to take action in their own way. One said, “More businesses should do this, this is what they did to Nazis when they occupied France, Denmark, Poland, and the Netherlands. It’s a powerful tactic because even if it doesn’t stop raids outright, it sends a message that communities stand together and won’t normalize fear.” Another commenter tried to say, “Yeah, the little sign does nothing.” The original commenter replied, “Tell that to the French Resistance, the Warsaw graffiti artists, or the Romans who carved insults into walls about emperors. Small acts always look meaningless until they terrify the powerful because they add up, they spread, and they prove people aren’t scared to resist. You just don’t know your history, pick up a book and educate yourself.”
