Students from multiple high schools in East Los Angeles walked out of class on Tuesday in support of immigrants’ rights and against the Trump administration’s policies of arrest, detention and deportation of migrant workers and their families.
Students at Garfield High School walked out at 10:00 am and marched down Whittier Boulevard, blocking traffic. They waved Mexican flags and carried signs and banners reading “lucha contra Trump” [fight against Trump]. Shortly thereafter, students from Oscar De La Hoya, Esteban E. Torres, Bravo Medical and Roosevelt high schools joined the walkout.
By 1:00 pm, the student demonstration had reached City Hall. A report by CBS News said that student protesters had breached City Hall barriers by 2:30 pm.
The CBS News report continued:
School officials encouraged students to stay on campus for safety purposes, and to “express their views on campus.” Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho encouraged students not to stay home, and to protest “within the school facilities.”
The student walkout coincided with a third day of protests in downtown Los Angeles against the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and arrests of thousands of immigrant workers since Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
Some immigrants have been detained and flown out of the US on military aircraft to countries such Colombia, Venezuela and Guatemala. While the White House is claiming that those being deported are guilty of crimes in the US, the truth is that the migrants being deported on military flights have been caught up in the ICE dragnet regardless of their immigration or legal status.
Tuesday saw the first US flight of detained migrants to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where Trump said a prison camp for 30,000 people is being built. The flight from Fort Bliss in Texas was reported to have a dozen migrants on board, most of whom were from Venezuela and classified as “high-value” detainees.
The Trump administration, which asserts that the migrants are affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang, will house these men in cells like those holding the “enemy combatants” who have been jailed at Guantanamo since the administration of George W. Bush, following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The 15 detainees remaining have been held in violation of their democratic rights.
The demonstrations on Tuesday were part of a nationwide “Day Without Immigrants” campaign, with workers staying home and students organizing walk-outs. The campaign was initiated on social media and took place in many of the cities where ICE raids have already taken place.
In Seaside, California, south of San Francisco, hundreds of people marched on Monday, blocking traffic on Fremont Street and Del Monte Boulevard to protest the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies and plans for mass deportations.
Protesters reported that on the previous day Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were spotted in Seaside and North Salinas. Many Latino-owned stores in Seaside and down the Central Coast were closed. Lupita’s Bakery on Fremont Avenue in Seaside released a statement that said, “Our decision today was about more than just business; it was about people, unity, and standing for what is right.”
On Monday in Chicago, small restaurants and retailers in Latino neighborhoods closed. The campaign gained momentum as immigration enforcement operations swept through the city with “enhanced” efforts.
Protester Ana Cacatci, who joined an event in West Chicago, told Chicago 5 TV:
It’s important to be here for my people. My parents immigrated here for us to have a better life. I think we have to spread the word and awareness… we are here just to work, and we want to do this for our parents and our people and to know they have rights.
In Detroit, hundreds of workers did not report to work and businesses were closed in Latino neighborhoods throughout Southwest Detroit, parts of Downriver, and elsewhere in southeast Michigan.
In Philadelphia on Monday, businesses were closed in solidarity with the nationwide protests, including Braza’s BBQ Chicken, a Peruvian restaurant in South Philly. “Us, the immigration population, we are part of the backbone of the economy of the country,” the owner of Braza’s, Juan Andres Placencia, told NBC10.
Protesters also marched from 9th Street and Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia to City Hall in Center City. Ana Victoria Sandoval, a member of the immigration rights group Juntos, told NBC10:
If we are not buying, participating actually, you will see that those offices aren’t clean. The floors aren’t clean. They are going to be running low because that is us that are bringing it to the table.
The rapid spread of the protests is an expression of the growing movement and mounting public anger against the fascist and authoritarian policies being implemented by the two-week old Trump regime.
On Wednesday, 50501 demonstrations (50 states, 50 protests, one day) are planned in the capitals of all 50 US states to protest the policies and executive orders of President Trump.
While workers and young people across the country are outraged and demanding mass action to put an end to the brutalization and violation of the basic rights of immigrants, the Democratic Party is doing nothing to mobilize this opposition. Instead, it has pledged to cooperate with Trump wherever possible and is downplaying Trump’s moves toward dictatorship. Its overriding concern is to block a mass movement from below that could threaten the capitalist system and the war policies of US imperialism.