Hundreds of anti-immigration enforcement demonstrators protested Friday afternoon in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood — with the intention of speaking with management at the local Target store.

“Target says its mission is to help all families discover the joy of everyday life, but families cannot experience joy when they are being unjustly detained and separated,” said the Rev. Dr. Michael Diaz, senior pastor of East Liberty Presbyterian Church. “As a pastor and neighbor, I urge Target to cease any collaboration with ICE and live into the values it publicly professes.”

Target, which is headquartered in Minnesota, has been called out by some for collaborating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and allowing them to use their parking lots for staging and bathrooms.

“Target, whose corporate headquarters are in Minneapolis, has been collaborating with ICE, allowing ICE to stage on their properties and to operate within their stores,” said a statement from the protesters.

Target did not respond to requests for comment from TribLive on Friday.

The group began marching at about 2:45 p.m. at East Liberty Presbyterian Church, walking to the East Liberty Target for an in-store protest and sidewalk demonstration.

Chants of “ICE out for good,” “Deport ICE,” and “Immigrants are welcome here” rang out.

The East Liberty protest was part of a national ICE Out For Good Day of Solidarity and Action after an immigration officer shot and killed Renee Good on Jan. 7 behind the wheel of her vehicle in Minneapolis. The 37-year-old mother of three had just dropped off her youngest child at an elementary school in the city.

“This killing is part of a broader pattern of acts of unchecked violence, impunity and abuse carried out by federal immigration enforcement agencies against members of our communities,” the protesters’ statement said.

Cellphone videos show that Border Patrol agents also detained two employees at the Target store in Richfield, Minn. in early January, the New York Times reported. Both employees appeared to have been filming the agents, and one of them had been directing expletives at them.

About 200 people registered for Friday’s protest, and organizers said the crowd ended up being around 250.

The march was made up of local faith and labor leaders, as well as immigrant advocates, grassroots partners and local people.

After marching down Penn Avenue, the protesters, who were holding an “ICE out for good” banner and numerous anti-ICE signs, began walking into the lobby of Target but were met with three Pittsburgh police officers standing at the sliding door ground entrance.

Eventually, the group was able to walk in — both through that entrance and the parking garage entrance — to gather in the lobby for the protest and more chants.

Brandi Fisher, founder and president of the Alliance for Police Accountability in Pittsburgh, joined others inside the store and tried to speak with a Target manager.

The manager met them and told them that he “didn’t have the level of authority to make the decision to make sure ICE doesn’t come in.”

“We’re doing our part in this global movement here in Pittsburgh by making sure our local Targets are following our value systems — of Pittsburghers,” Fisher said. “We are hopeful that it’ll follow through. We had a great conversation with the manager here; we’re going to follow up with the corporation.”

LIVE: ICE OUT protest is inside Target in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood. Here are some photos @TribLIVE pic.twitter.com/fipDMuhdPZ

— Megan Swift (@mgswift7) January 23, 2026

Video of the protest reaching Target — three Pittsburgh Police officers are here @TribLIVE pic.twitter.com/TRJm8DNMdG

— Megan Swift (@mgswift7) January 23, 2026

The goal of Friday’s demonstration was to let Target know that it needs to “kick ICE out” and protect its customers, Fisher said.

“Today, we are standing in solidarity with the folks in Minnesota,” she said. “We’re taking a stand that ICE is not law enforcement, and even if they were, the way they’re acting is fully unjust — and what we’re here to do is let Target know because Target has been allowing ICE to come in.”

Local groups involved with the protest included the SEIU, Casa San Jose, PA United, local faith leaders, Indivisible Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Women 4 Democracy, 1Hood, Alliance for Police Accountability, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action Pittsburgh, Commonwealth of Oakland and Indivisible Regent Square.

Guillermo Perez, secretary treasurer of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, said that the protesters “fully support” a national boycott of Target stores — including those in the Pittsburgh area.

“Target’s slogan is ‘Expect more. Pay less.’ We expect way more of Target, and we don’t intend to pay them anything until we see a change of policy regarding ICE activity in their stores,” Perez said.

Once inside the retail store, Fisher said it “was an amazing sight.” She observed some Target workers and customers shopping at Target watching the demonstration, with some “speaking up and joining in.”

“Just because people work at Target doesn’t mean they agree with the corporation, and we realize that,” she said.

Jonathan Mayo, a volunteer organizer with Bend the Arc: Jewish Action Pittsburgh, said the main reason he believed it was important to show up Friday was to get more people to “understand that our rights are being taken away.”

“To me, it means everything because we’re at a point with what’s going on in this country where we have to show up en masse even when it’s cold — especially when it’s cold — to show that we’re not going to go away,” said Mayo, 55, of Squirrel Hill. “This is going to be a long fight.”

He said his lessons on the Holocaust in Hebrew school taught him that if people don’t stand up for each other, “there’s going to be no one left.”

Collaboration across communities is key, according to Mayo.

“I think too often, I think the natural human inclination is to turn inward … when things look dangerous, and it takes extra work and maybe some courage to turn outward and reach across lines that you may not have thought you would normally need to cross,” he said.

Mayo said he wishes protesting wasn’t necessary, but he gained a lot of positive energy from the experience.

“I think more and more people are showing up with energy and with optimism, which is a hard thing to come by these days,” he said. “You leave something like this and you feel like maybe we have a chance to fight back and kind of make sure that our rights aren’t completely eroded and our democracy isn’t completely demolished.”

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