Police arrested at least one demonstrator Friday outside the office of Montreal-based private security giant GardaWorld, which is reportedly helping staff the Florida detention site known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
About 1,000 Montrealers protested against the province’s investments in GardaWorld outside the company’s headquarters near Place Vertu shopping mall in the St-Laurent borough on Friday afternoon. A subsidiary of the Canadian company was
approved by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
to compete for US$138 million (CAN$190 million) of contracts for emergency detention services, government records show.
The protest drew people from the left-leaning party Québec solidaire, Amnesty International and union representatives from the Confédération des syndicats nationaux and the Fédération Autonome de l’Enseignement.
Montreal police arrest anti-ICE protestor outside GardaWorld headquarters pic.twitter.com/4zEnSErN8R
— leora schertzer (@leoraschertzer) February 14, 2026
“Our tax dollars are directly contributing to companies which are complicit in the crimes against humanity being committed by ICE,” said protest organizer Celeste Trianon. Quebec’s provincial investment agency, Investissement Québec, invested $300 million in GardaWorld in 2022. She pointed to the ICE killings of U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and the violent deportations of many people of colour, as reasons for organizing the protest.
“I cannot live knowing that I’m helping subsidize some of the worst crimes possible, so close to home.”
As music blared from a truck, demonstrators marched from the parking lot of Place Vertu shortly after 4 p.m. to the GardaWorld offices on Émile-Bélanger St., which was blockaded by caution tape, dozens of riot police and GardaWorld security staff.
“F**k GardaWorld, f**k ICE, f**k Trump!” protesters chanted as they marched toward GardaWorld’s head office.
After a handful of protesters threw chunks of ice and snowballs at the officers, police responded by pepper spraying people directly in the face and firing what appeared to be a tear gas projectile at the crowd.
One protester who was seen throwing an ice chunk directly toward an officer was pinned to the ground and arrested.
Riot police with shields charged the crowd several times.
MNA Alejandra Zaga Mendez of Québec solidaire stood alongside the protesters.
“We have to show solidarity with all communities, especially the Latino community, that are specifically targeted. I’m part of the Latin American community. I know how it is,” she said in an interview.
“Our public money does not need to go to this company. That’s what we are denouncing,” she said, noting she presented a motion in the National Assembly to stop giving public money to companies connected with ICE.
There are plans by organizers to launch formal petitions in the National Assembly and the House of Commons to withdraw public funds from GardaWorld, according to demonstrator Dave Hamelin-Schuilenburg, a dual citizen who left Pittsburgh in 2016 after U.S. President Donald Trump was elected.
Another protester, Jimena Recillas, wore a shirt that read: “Made by immigrants, the children of those who turned nothing into something.” Recillas, who moved to Canada from Mexico as a child 20 years ago, said she worries about her Mexican family members living in the U.S.
“We want to support our family that we can’t go and see them because of all of this.”
Her friend Abril Obregon pointed out the irony of the anti-Latin American immigrant sentiment in the U.S., saying U.S. and Canadian mining companies have an invasive presence in Mexico.
“Some (immigrants) don’t really have that option to do the paperwork. It’s very complicated, and for a lot of them, it’s a life or death situation. So like, for us, I think we both agree that like, migration, like should, shouldn’t be penalized in that way,” Obregon said.
For protester Shahav Razavi, “no economic benefit could be worth what’s happening. No economic benefit for the province could justify what’s happening in the U.S.”