Key Points
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Anti-ICE protestors marched through downtown San Diego on the first day of Comic-Con 2026.
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Dozens rallied and displayed banners decrying abuses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as Comic-Con attendees queued up for events and activations.
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Mike Rothbaum, the rabbi at Congregation Dor Hadash, tells EW that the rally and accompanying Tisha B’Av vigil were a way of “grieving those who have died at the hands of ICE.”
Anti-ICE protestors joined the fans, gamers, cosplayers, and collectors on the streets of downtown San Diego on Thursday.
The intersection of Fifth Ave. and L St. was already thronged by attendees queuing up for panels, screenings, and activations on the first day of San Diego Comic-Con 2026 when dozens of protestors marched toward the annual fan expo’s central hub — the San Diego Convention Center, located just across nearby Harbor Blvd.
The group rallied around a large black banner that read, “ICE OUT OF SD,” while others carried homemade signs decrying Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the controversial agency established in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that has employed increasingly aggressive tactics in President Donald Trump’s second term.
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The protest was organized by the ICE Out of San Diego coalition, a local branch of the larger ICE Out of California resistance group. Salvador G. Sarmiento, national campaign director and attorney for the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, one of the many groups thatched together to form IOSD, told Entertainment Weekly that the action was the latest iteration of a monthly march that IOSD holds at the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building.
This week, IOSD pledged a march to Harbor Drive that a poster said would deliver the “ICE OUT message with a Comic-Con twist.”
“Across the country, families are feeling the consequences of federal overreach. From attacks on due process and civil liberties to efforts to silence the free press and limit public access to information, these actions threaten the foundation of our democracy,” read a description on the event page hosted by San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO. “This is more than a protest! It’s a stand for dignity, justice, and the right of every family to live free from fear. Bring your friends, your signs, and your voice. Together, we can show that San Diego stands for community, not cages.”
Mike Rothbaum, the rabbi at Congregation Dor Hadash at San Diego’s Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, told EW that the group “did a Tisha B’Av vigil grieving those who have died at the hands of ICE. Then we marched with NDLON.”
Protestors also “carried photos of the dead as we marched.”
Both Rothbaum and Sarmiento emphasized that the protest was held in response to two recent killings of civilians by ICE agents.
An ICE agent shot and killed 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on July 7 during a traffic stop in Houston. Six days later, another agent fatally shot 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in front of his 3-year-old daughter outside a laundromat in Biddeford, Maine.
“Comic-Con is a celebration of creativity, of love for the art, the culture, the movies that move us to do bigger things, inspire us to do right or to speak out when we must,” Sarmiento told EW. “Today, we need that courage and creativity, to speak out about the human rights crisis here at home. For Lorenzo, for Johan, for their babies that today are without their dads. This is what it means show up for your neighbors, with creativity and courage.”
Protests have erupted around the country in the wake of the killings. In San Diego, signs bearing messages such as “ICE get out of our cities” and “When we unite love wins” floated above the crowd.
Check out more of EW’s coverage fromSan Diego Comic-Con 2026.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
