More than two hundred students walked out of their last period Friday and marched from the high school on Ledyard Street down Woodward Avenue back to Cass Park to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Organizers said the demonstration that included students and teachers from Cass Tech and Detroit School of Arts was intended to send a message to elected leaders that even kids know the aggressive enforcement tactics championed by President Donald Trump are wrong.
“There were high school freshman out here, 14, 13-years-old who are out here in the streets in the freezing for cold marching and chanting because as children, we know it isn’t right, so we know adults know this is wrong,” said Hailee Hallman, one of the leaders of the group of students who organized the demonstration.
While teachers at Cass Tech received instructions from district administrators not to interfere with students who decided to leave class early for the protest, some joined students, walking with them in protest of the recent ICE killings in Minneapolis, MN.
Hallman said student organizers are planning another protest against ICE enforcement next Friday, Feb. 6.
Zach Herman, a Spanish teacher at Detroit School of Arts, joined students in the protest. Herman told Michigan Chronicle that he joined the protest to show solidarity.
“I wanted to stand with our students and show them that their teachers are proud of them and care about them,” Herman said. “It was also a real world lesson about using your voice in a peaceful manner to affect change.”
In a press conference Friday, leaders at the Detroit Branch NAACP called on Michigan’s Congressional delegates to introduce measures to hold ICE and CBP agents accountable and limit Department of Homeland Security funding. Detroit branch NAACP president Wendell Anthony stood beside leaders from the Arab American Civil Rights League and Latino Americans for Social and Economic Development in a show of solidarity.
Youth NAACP council president Makayla Headen said she’s hearing horror stories from her peers who are being affected by increased ICE patrols.
“ICE is messing with people’s routines, they can’t go to the stores they usually do. People aren’t going to school,” Headen said. “ICE has been allowed to operate with alarming negligence and little accountability.”
Students gathered outside of Little Caesars Arena on Woodward Avenue, where Cass Tech senior class president Brizait Gonzalez Rivera told her peers they were here for an important purpose.
“This is a movement… We don’t want to skip (class), we’re here for a reason,” Gonzalez Rivera said. “We are here for people who don’t have voices who are suffering in detention camps. As a Mexican American, I feel for them.”
Cass Tech senior class president Brizait Gonzalez Rivera speaks to the crowd outside Little Caesars Arena. Photo: Sam Robinson
Two of her friends, Ximena Castorena and Analise Diaz, held signs that read, “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido,” which translates to “the people united will never be defeated” in english.
Other students held signs reading “Immigrants feed America!!!”; “Impeach Trump”; “It shouldn’t have to happen to you for it to matter to you.”
Sophomore Cameron Higgins told Michigan Chronicle, “nobody’s all that different, we’re all humans.”
“Everybody’s against each other for no reason, we need to be one whole,” Higgins said as he walked back to Cass Tech holding an anti-ICE sign.
Eventually, the march passed by Cass Tech and reached its end point at Cass Park as students not participating in the demonstration were picked up from school.
At the park, 10th grader Kingston Pendergraft took the mic from Hallman to encourage peers of all backgrounds to come together against ICE agents, which he compared to the Nazi Gestapo.
“This is our country, these are our streets,” Pendergraft said. “The greatest tool we have against this oppressor is community.”
