Taking a stance against ICE, students walked out of school on Feb. 13 hoping to make their voices heard. This protest had been organized a few days prior on an online confessions page, very similar to how a protest against teacher mistreatment had been organized back in September. Students gathered in the front foyer of the school, before starting to walk out of the school and down McNeil Road at 1:15 pm.
“The walkout was to stand up about the violence that ICE has been causing across the nation, we wanted everyone to know we don’t support that here, and wanted to make that very clear.” sophomore Paola (Peque) Farias. “I feel like as an immigrant and experiencing [having] to go through the immigration process, it’s really sad to see people that are literally just like me and could be me getting their lives destroyed.”
With the increased presence of ICE, there has been mass deportation. While the numbers for how many have been deported are not accessible, Trump came into office claiming to be targeting more than 10 million migrants in deportation efforts according to NBC News. This has caused the separation of families across the country, taking mothers, fathers, mothers and other key members away from their families.
“For the protest I made many signs that were just around for everybody. I made many Molotov signs which is a band and they have a whole bunch of lyrics that relate to this.” Farias said. “One of the lyrics I put was “Hay que arrancar el problema de raíz Y cambiar al gobierno de nuestro país”, which is lets pull the issue from the roots and change the government of our country, which fits pretty perfectly in this situation.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence has increased in the recent year with President Donald Trump adding major funding in his second term, making the ICE presence more active. According to NPR, Trump has gotten the funding for ICE up to $29 billion annually and $85 billion dollars in total, making it the most funded agency in the U.S. government. Bringing awareness to the situation is crucial for student voices to be heard.
“I think that kind of shows that we’re a part of that and we’re showing that it’s not just something you see on the news, and it’s something that’s in real life as well.” Rose said. “People made their signs and we chanted and we made ourselves seen and stuff. I think that’s what a lot of schools are trying to do.”
