ICE protests continued locally this week, with students from Woods Cross High School staging a walkout this afternoon.
A group of students gathered on the front steps of the school to hear a few words from student organizers before marching down to 2600 and the Woods Crossing Plaza. As they stood on the corner and chanted, cars drove by and honked while others leaned out their window and jeered.
Why are Woods Cross Students protesting?
We asked several students why they had decided to organize or join the protest.
“Because we want the kids in our school to feel safe,” one student told us.
Everybody should always feel safe coming to school,” another added. “We talk a lot about bullying and discrimination, and school should be the number one place you feel safe.
One of the organizers said that they had had enough and decided to exercise their civic rights.
“When one is dissatisfied with their government, we have a duty to speak up for what we believe to be true. We want people to hear that we aren’t happy with what is going on.”
Another student organizer noted the significance of the event coinciding with Black History Month, “Martin Luther King taught us to speak when we need to speak. And we want to help protect those who cannot help themselves.
Several of the students expressed concerns about various reports of children being detained by ICE, specifically five-year-old Liam Ramos of Minappolis, a preschooler who was picked up with his father as they were arriving home from school. Ramos spent more than a week in a detention center in Texas before being released.
The Woods Cross protest follows several throughout the past few weeks, including last week at Bountiful High School. Woods Cross students weren’t alone in their walkouts today either. Students at Olympus, Skyline, Highland, Cottonwood, Judge Memorial, and Granger highs all walked out too, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
Immigrants built this country? I thought they came here and stole the land!
Bro did you not pay attention in history😭
Good on them! Proud of these students