By Lucy Komisar
Jan 11, 2026

About two hundred protesters stood along Truman Avenue, a main street in Key West, to add their signs and voices to the national protests against Donald Trump’s ICE death squad execution of Renee Good.

Cars passing on the road created a cacophony of horns to signal their support.

Even the iconic Key West rooster paid attention.

Here is what it looked like.

And at the entrance to Bayview Park: “Where are the 1200 Everglades Detainees?” Trump has disappeared.

After I left the protest, I heard Rafael Peñalver, President of the San Carlos Institute, address the Key West Literary Seminar which is held every January at the Institute. As a child, he and his family fled Cuba after the 1961 revolution led by Fidel Castro. A lawyer, he has been active in Florida’s Cuban expat community. His political history is Republican. But his ideas are independent.

Peñalver said he had joined the anti-ICE protest and (speaking for himself and not the Institute) warned, “I feel that the objective of ICE and the national army that’s being set up is not to get rid of the immigrants.”

“That’s just a pretext. It is to raise a national army under his command, local and state police forces under that command.” He said for a person who one time sought to maintain power with an insurrection to do that “is very dangerous.”

The audience applauded.

Photos by Lucy Komisar.