Brentwood protesters gather to demand ICE exit the area

A protest broke out in Brentwood on Tuesday morning as vehicles said to be carrying ICE agents appeared, drawing more than two dozen people who blew whistles, honked horns and yelled in English and Spanish at the occupants, demanding they leave.

Suffolk County police said they were called to the scene but no one was arrested. The protest came as demonstrations against President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign have grown nationwide, especially after the fatal shootings last month of two protesters in Minneapolis.

In what appeared to be a spontaneous demonstration Tuesday, spurred by people livestreaming video of the scene on Facebook, the Brentwood protesters gathered near a sedan parked on Grove Street that they believed was carrying an agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The protesters can be seen on the video yelling at the occupant inside the unmarked silver Dodge Charger to get out of the community. Others film the vehicle’s license plate and some demonstrators carry megaphones.

"We do not want you here," one protester is heard yelling at the driver inside the Charger, who was barely visible behind tinted windows.

Another man, who was apparently making the video, is heard in Spanish urging people watching his live feed to join him and the others at the scene.

"People of Brentwood, come out! La migra is here," he says, using the Spanish term for immigration agents. "We are by the 7-Eleven on Wicks Road."

Demonstrators then are seen walking down the street to the nearby 7-Eleven to join others who are seen on the video yelling, honking and blowing whistles at the occupant of a black unmarked SUV they believed also belonged to ICE.

"The whole lot was full" with people and vehicles brought by protesters, said a worker at the 7-Eleven, who did not want his name used. "That was so crazy. I never expected that to happen."

Suffolk County police said in a statement that officers "observed a group of people yelling outside 7-Eleven in Brentwood and asked the group not to block traffic to the business." They did not confirm whether the vehicles contained ICE agents or belonged to the agency.

Both vehicles apparently left eventually without incident. ICE did not respond to a request by Newsday for comment.

State Assemb. Phil Ramos (D-Brentwood) said Tuesday’s protest signaled the growing anger many people feel over Trump’s deportation campaign and the tactics agents are employing. Trump has said federal law enforcement is arresting and deporting mainly dangerous criminals, though studies have shown many migrants detained in the campaign have no criminal record.

"I think the communities are fed up with the violence that they see inflicted by government agencies on the street," Ramos said.

The January fatal shootings of two demonstrators in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents provoked widespread shock and outrage across the country. Trump removed the head of the surge of 3,000 immigration agents sent to Minneapolis, Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino. Democrats in Congress meanwhile are holding up funding for the Department of Homeland Security until their demands for ICE reforms are met.

Ramos said most immigrants arrested and pegged for deportation "are just people who have come to this country for the American dream and just want an opportunity, and that doesn’t justify the type of violence used against them and the terrorizing of our communities."