Kendra Ferguson Uses Weekly Clown Patrols to Deter ICE Raids at Schools
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Sep 16
Kendra Ferguson Uses Weekly Clown Patrols to Deter ICE Raids at Schools
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Sep 16
Summary
Since January, Kendra Ferguson has worked school patrol as a clown, juggling and playing with students during morning drop-off while watching for potential ICE raids.
The San Francisco performer turned to that role after months of anti-ICE demonstrations outside immigration court, where she and another clown mixed leafleting on alleged ICE abductions with balloon animals, stilts and juggling clubs.
Ferguson said the tactic grew out of an August 2025 protest where agents pepper-sprayed demonstrators and she improvised clowning to calm the group and restore a sense of humanity.
Her activism sits within a broader movement using clown performance to challenge state power and exclusion, from New York council testimony to earlier anti-racist and border protests.
Why did a drag clown's bizarre testimony become the unexpected focal point in the bitter battle to ban New York's carriage horses?
Following a tragic tourist fatality, will a controversial 2028 phase-out plan finally end Central Park's historic but deadly horse-drawn carriage industry?