Washington: My overnight hotel stay during an ICE protest

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With our anniversary in February as well as Valentine’s Day approaching, my wife and I wanted a couple’s night out. We also wanted to see how the other half lives.

ICE agents, that is.

A tipster told me protesters would be clanging pots and pans outside a downtown St. Paul hotel, where ICE agents were believed to be staying. These hotel protests have been well-covered, but less so the activities of the agents in their off-hours. What was their life like when they took off their masks? Are they regular guys, hanging in groups, or loners pouring out their woes at the bar?

I booked the room early Wednesday for a Thursday night stay. A manager emailed me 12 hours later.

“We have received information from the local government that there may be protest activity in the area surrounding the hotel on Thursday, February 5th starting at 7p,” it read. “As a precaution, all hotel entrances, including the garage doors, will be closed after 5p and may only be opened by a member of our staff.

I let them know we’d be keeping the reservation, and when we arrived at 3 p.m. the lobby was virtually barren. The desk clerk was friendly, though less thrilled about having to work a shift with noisemakers outside. “I drew the short straw,” he said.

After settling in, I asked him if I had time to go to Walgreens before the doors shut. “I’ll let you in,” he assured me.

When I returned carrying a single rose for my wife he said, “Such a gentleman!”

“I should have bought two,” I replied.

“It’s the thought that counts,” he said.

I came down again with my open laptop, looking for the business center. “Do you just need to print?” asked the desk clerk, pointing me to a computer and printer setup in the open, not the separate room that I envisioned.

I retreated to our room as 7 p.m. came and went, with no protesters showing up yet. My wife and I decided to go for takeout. When we came back around 8, a few had gathered on the corner. We pulled up to the closed garage door and rang for assistance, identifying ourselves, and two staffers came to open it.

A phalanx of St. Paul police officers was assembled just inside the garage. Up in our ninth-floor room, the clattering and whistling grew louder — but no more than the all-night street party noise at an Airbnb we stayed at in Manhattan. We also had a great vantage point: At its peak, the protesters numbered about 30 before flittering out around 11 p.m.

As I learned afterward from my source, that night’s action “just kinda sprang up” and a larger one was to come. “I guess it was pretty tame,” she said of the gathering Thursday night.

So what of the habits of ICE agents on their own time?

The breakfast nook was more revealing. Obvious civilians — a convention-going man wearing his lanyard, two young women on the town, a businesswoman working on a presentation — humorously compared notes on the protest. Most said it hardly disturbed their sleep.

And then, one by one, a half-dozen or so men showed up for breakfast. All were about 30-something, every one in a baseball cap. Their main garb was black jeans or sporty pants, a casual shirt and beard or stubble. Each grabbed his food from the buffet (I think only one of them made a waffle) and sat down alone, leaving as another came in. None of them spoke or shared pleasantries with other guests. The exception was a pair sitting together, with one on the phone nearly his whole time in the nook.

Would my observations count as doxxing or impeding the work of federal agents, which border czar Tom Homan has labeled potentially obstructive? To be clear, nothing in our stay involved identifying individual agents, confirming their employment, recording security procedures or publishing information that could place anyone at risk. Everything observed was visible to any hotel guest.

But I would have welcomed the opportunity to hear the agents’ stories — why they took the job and how they personally square their roles in the competing interests of the federal government and civilians. Or just to hear them laugh at the mindless chatter the other guests shared.

Likewise, if anyone asked, I was prepared to divulge my occupation and why I was there. (It was, though, truly a couple’s night out.)