“No ICE! No KKK! No fascists in the U.S.A.!” chanted hundreds of Lane Tech students as they peacefully protested ICE during a school walkout during the end of the Feb. 6 school day. Students walked around the Lane campus with signs denouncing ICE and chanting.
As they protested, Lane students received support from their communities. Cars, trucks and pedestrians honked and shouted words of encouragement to show their alliance with the protest.
Students came together to protest ICE for many reasons. “We are protesting the government organization known as ICE who have been illegally and brutally taking down immigrants, purely based on racial profiling, and in the past week or so, they’ve been killing American citizens,” said Jose Diaz III, a junior at Lane.
This was referencing two killings that have happened in Minneapolis by ICE agents. The first of Renee Good on Jan. 7, and the second of Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, according to PBS.
Again referencing the Minneapolis killings, junior Oliver DeMarea said, “We don’t want federal agents on our streets in light of the recent murders in Minneapolis. I call them murders because that’s what they are. They’re not killings. They’re people murdered with political intent for speaking out against ICE, and that’s fascism, and I don’t mean to suggest that it hasn’t been happening in America. We know that political activists have been being slain in the streets since America’s conception, just now it’s in a much more visible light.”
Similarly, senior Hope Maciel said, “This is important because immigrants are a really important part of our country, and Trump is trying to take them out forcefully. It is not right, and we need to do something about this.”
Junior Charlotte Braund held a similar stance. “I think the unconstitutionality of [ICE] and the inhumanity is kind of really scary the way [ICE agents are] not treating these people like people,” she said.
Additionally, many protesters were generally happy with the turnout of the walkout. “[the turnout is] incredible,” said Diaz. “I am just so proud of our school for being able to turn out this much. You can really feel like most of the people want to be here and protesting.”
Braund agreed that the turnout was “awesome,” and was surprised at the number of attendees given that she had only heard of the protest the day prior.
Though he was happy with the turnout, DeMarea thought there could have been more people. “We’re a huge school so there could always be more people, and I’d like to see more people, but I think this is a pretty big turnout,” he said. “I’m sort of in the middle of the crowd and there’s, I’d say, roughly a couple hundred people in front of me, and probably a couple hundred people behind me.”
Diaz believes protesting can be very beneficial. “It’s a great show of how much support there is towards taking down ICE and demolishing it as an organization, and how many people dislike their method and tactics,” said Diaz.
