Occupy ICE sets up encampments to protest immigration policy

TAMPA (FOX 13) - For the fourth straight day, dozens of protesters gathered outside Tampa’s Department of Homeland Security building to protest the immigration policies of both the Obama and Trump presidencies. Today, organizers wanted to get the community involved.

"We wanted to have a lighthearted, wholesome, kids friendly event for everybody,” said Jen Derless, a protester. “Because we're an inclusive movement, and we want everyone to feel included."

The agency in charge of enforcing border laws has become the target of those fed up with the administration’s border policies, but anti-ICE Occupier Roger Butterfield says, it goes beyond the Trump White House.

"It's definitely bigger than Trump,” he said. “Obama deported, I think the count was 3-million people? And this was rapidly escalated under him. So when [President] Trump took over, he was simply taking the reins of a monstrous machine that the Obama administration had built, and the Bush before that."

Despite the abolition calls, the president has been steadfast in his support of the agency.

“I hear Dems say, ‘we want to abandon ICE,’ but we’re not abandoning ICE and we're not abandoning our law enforcement,” President Trump said. “Just the opposite."

Though it's the opposite of their demands, the occupiers are continuing their mission.

"We're going to be here for as long as it takes," Derless said.