Around 300 students and community members marched from Littlefield Fountain to the Texas Capitol on Saturday to protest President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The protest, which fraternity Sigma Lambda Beta organized, began at the Littlefield Fountain at 10:00 a.m. and brought together multiple student organizations, including Students for a Democratic Society, the Sigma Lambda Alpha sorority and the Chicano Association of Law Students.
Joban Hernandez, a protest organizer from Sigma Lambda Beta, said his organization wanted to build a platform to unite his community.
“Whenever I suggested to the brotherhood we should have a protest, it stemmed from the fact that my family’s here right now, and it took them years and years to be able to get their residency,” exercise science senior Hernandez said. “Throughout those years, we struggled to make sure we had rent from month to month (and) making sure we had food.”
Organizers handed out “know your rights” papers to protesters before the protest began. Protestors wore jerseys of Mexico’s national soccer team, waved Mexican-American hybrid flags and held signs demanding an end to the criminalization of migration status. Ricardo Marquez Reyes, a business, mathematics and engineering freshman, wore sunglasses with a phrase originating from the Chicano movement reading “Viva la raza, si se puede,” or “Long live the people, yes it can be done.”
“Yes, it can be done, it can always be done — it doesn’t matter what they tell you,” Marquez Reyes said. “We’ll always be here, and we’ll always support you. We’re a community.”
At approximately 11:15 a.m., the protestors marched to the Capitol accompanied by UTPD, whose presence had been requested by organizers, University spokesperson Mike Rosen said in an email. When the protesters arrived, at least 22 speakers gave personal stories about their families’ interactions with the American immigration system and messages of support to others in the audience.
“The Republicans in the building behind us are against us,” government freshman Emily Moreno said. “They do not want to see us united. They want to tear us apart. They want to tear our families apart. We cannot let that happen.”
Economics senior Jorge Garcia said in his speech that members of his family feared confrontation with ICE.
“(My dad) told me, ‘Son, I need you to come back with us,’” Garcia said. “They’re afraid. They cannot even go grocery shopping because they’re fucking afraid of getting deported.”
The protestors stayed at the Capitol until 1:15 p.m. before marching back to Littlefield Fountain and dispersing. Hernandez said regardless of the number of deportations, his movement would not stop supporting immigrants.
“We organized this for all of you,” Hernandez said in a speech he gave in Spanish. “For the people who aren’t here, for the people who don’t have a voice, for the people who are scared.”
