Anti-ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) activists shut down city streets around ICE headquarters in downtown Columbus, attempted to occupy the ICE office, and erected a two-story wooden tripod structure in front of the building with a sign reading "ICE RUINS LIVES HERE" on Monday, July 9. Local Columbus Sanctuary Collective activist Ruben Castilla Herrera said: "ICE was created and it can be demolished, it can be abolished and we're going to make it happen." Demonstrators held signs reading "Abolish ICE" and chanted "No Borders, No Wall!"

Police descended on the demonstrators, bringing in a hook and ladder firetruck to remove two activists attached to the top of the handmade structure. Columbus Police arrested a dozen activists, charging them with trespassing and/or obstructing police business. Ten of them spent the night in the Franklin County Jail and pled guilty the following morning. Their attorneys Bob Fitrakis (this paper's editor) and Connie Gadell-Newton categorized the protestors' actions as "nonviolent civil disobedience in the finest tradition of American dissent." Judge Barrows indicated he agreed with them. Gadell-Newton told the media that she stood in solidarity with the demonstrators and that as an attorney specializing in juvenile cases, she was appalled that the federal government would separate families without any system in place to reunite them. 

The activists were let go aftere they pleaded guilty primarily to 4th-degree trespassing charges and  released for time served in jail. Their fines were also suspended pending the payment of court costs.