Community members will demonstrate outside the AT&T store in Champaign Sunday from 1:30-2:30 p.m., as part of an effort to push AT&T to end its contracts with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. DHS oversees U.S. immigration enforcement agencies.
According to a press release from the Immigrant Justice Team at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign, several churches and faith leaders, as well as AT&T customers, will peacefully demonstrate outside the store located at 1902 N. Prospect Ave.
The press release states that the demonstration will “call on the telecom giant to cancel its contracts with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”
AT&T and DHS have had a relationship for over 30 years. In March 2024, AT&T was awarded a 10-year, $146 million contract in which it was to provide DHS with “Government Emergency Telecommunications Service” and “Wireless Priority Service.”
The contract was expanded in August 2024 to include 5G networks.
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Demonstration organizers point to AT&T’s earnings and say AT&T does not need the contract with DHS. In the third quarter of 2025, AT&T made $30.7 billion in revenue.
The demonstrations come as President Donald Trump has ramped up immigration enforcement across the nation and increased ICE presence in U.S. cities, including Chicago and Urbana. The administration has recorded a record-breaking number of deportations within the past year.
Jill Singer, AT&T’s vice president of federal solutions, said at the time of the contract’s announcement that, “AT&T has enjoyed a long-lasting relationship with DHS … and is dedicated to support the national security and emergency preparedness mission for the foreseeable future.”
According to a post on Mobilize.us — a platform that advertises collective actions and protests — Chicago community members plan to demonstrate against AT&T as well.
“ICE and CBP are terrorizing our communities,” protest organizers wrote in one event description. “AT&T is profiting from multimillion-dollar contracts with those agencies while they do so.”
Organizers called out ICE’s increasingly aggressive tactics in Chicago. A federal judge ruled Thursday that hundreds of people detained by ICE be released from federal custody, saying their arrests were possibly unlawful and in violation of a federal court order.
“We refuse to let corporations make millions off of agencies whose armed, masked agents raid our neighborhoods in military vehicles—detaining people on sidewalks, near schools, and in their homes—while throwing tear gas canisters into the streets,” organizers wrote on the Lakeview/Lincoln Park Corporate Speakout event page. The same message is displayed on all Illinois “AT&T Loves ICE” event pages through the Mobilize website.
The AT&T corporation “has and continues to profit from the mass detention and deportation machine,” the press release stated. Demonstrators say they are determined to hold AT&T accountable for continuing its contracts with ICE, DHS and CBP despite ICE’s current actions.
