Arlington, VA—Mix wheat and water and boil and you get a powerful concoction that can be used to wage an information war against the country’s most dangerous gang—Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And that’s what an anonymous grassroots group did in Arlington Virginia on Monday night after a week of planning and coordination. It put up a mural of all the ICE victims in 2025-6.
They created 36 images of those killed or slain while in ICE custody over the past year and wheat pasted them into a mural on the side of a prominent building on Columbia Pike. The building on which the mural is wheat pasted sees thousands of motorists passing by each day on their way out of Washington DC.
The action was taken in response to ICE targeting of brown and asian immigrants and the senseless killing of Renee Nicole Good two weeks ago.
The entire action took a week to organize and was carried out late when no one was around. It took the group less than 15 minutes to execute—to roll the wheat pasted onto the side of the building and affix the posters of the victims—too small a time frame for law enforcement to respond.
Don’t worry about vandalism though. They had the consent of the owner and agreed not to deface the building itself but added the mural to plywood at the site.
A spokesperson from the anonymous group told DCMediaGroup that multiple people took part in the action but did not want to identify the group or the people involved out of concern of response or harassment from ICE or other federal law enforcement agencies.
A different nation-wide grassroots group distributed the photos but an artist in this particular Arlington group designed the frame and artwork around the photos.
”We as a group wanted to make a prominent statement by dedicating a mural and memorial for victims that ICE murdered either in cold blood, while in detention, or by denying medical care, in 2025,” the spokesperson said.
ICE continues to ramp up its siege in Minneapolis, rounding up, kidnapping, and disappearing immigrants legally in the U.S. as well as arresting U.S. citizens and detaining them without warrants and without due process. It has created throughout Minneapolis a remarkably strong resistance in response, one which ICE is having trouble contending with. For example in many businesses owners and staff are posting signs reading “ICE Get Out.”
With each draconian measure ICE takes against citizens exercising their First Amendment rights, comes more video depicting ICE brutality, which in turn spurs more citizens to actively participate in resistance activities against ICE. The action taken on Monday night demonstrates that citizens can challenge ICE lawlessness without directly confronting ICE agents directly.
Another lesson is to always record ICE actions in their entirety and keep the camera steady.
