Tacoma Students say, “Rain, snow, sleet or hail, we will not let ICE prevail!”
Tacoma, WA – On March 13, over 60 students showed up for a rally in Tollefson Plaza protesting President Trump’s tyranny in their community. The students faced difficult weather that brought snow while they chanted “Rain, snow, sleet or hail, we will not let ICE prevail!”
This rally was organized by high school students from many schools in the Tacoma and surrounding school districts. The students demand that their schools’ administrations take more action at protecting them during school hours and to fight back against ICE terror after school hours.
Many students shared how the impact of ICE has influenced them. One student named Charlotte Austin said, “We should be focusing on finals and school, but instead we can’t. Because some people don’t get to do finals in school. They’re being stolen off the streets. They’re taken from schools; kids are coming home to their parents being gone. ICE is making children homeless, they’re separating families.”
In many ways, the cruelty of the U.S. immigration process has made students recognize how the laws are unnecessary. Immigration issues are considered a misdemeanor so that the U.S. government can withhold legal assistance. Yet many who are kidnapped by ICE face worse conditions then they would at any prison. Tacoma is home to one of the largest detention centers in the state of Washington. The Northwest ICE Processing Center is used to imprison over 1500 people. At this facility, people have been reported to have been fed moldy food, had their wages stolen [1], and have been sexually assaulted by Geo employees [2].
The Northwest ICE Processing Center is hidden between warehouses and train tracks, and the students are sympathetic to the people’s suffering. After walking out of school to protest in freezing conditions, Austin said, “It’s really important for people to show up, no matter the weather, because people are going through worse conditions in detention centers. We can show up for a couple of hours in the snow.”
This rally came less than a week after a protest and march honoring the fight for International Women’s Day and a week and half before No Kings in Tacoma. It is clear that more people in Tacoma are getting organized and prepared to take to the streets to fight against imperialism in all its forms.
[2] https://www.theurbanist.org/ice-tacoma-detention-center-targeted-in-lawsuit/