Around 150 students and community members gathered at Littlefield Fountain to protest the immigration enforcement policies of President Donald Trump on Wednesday. 

Austin Students for a Democratic Society organized the protest to respond not only to policies targeting immigrant communities but also to unconfirmed reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence on campus. 

“Seeing the possibility of that ramping up, having more ICE operations going on here, being unabated and unresisted, felt wrong,” SDS organizer Arshia Papari said. “We want to gather the community together and have everyone be here in solidarity, in community and in unison, pushing back against the repression and against the brutalization of our students and the possibility of that in the future.”

Demonstrators held signs emphasizing the contributions immigrants make in supporting the U.S. economy and demanding the elimination of ICE. At least 10 speakers shared personal perspectives advocating for immigrant rights and called for unity and organized action to protect undocumented students and others with temporary status. 

“My family came here, my father came here illegally,” said Javier Perez-Salazar, a biomedical engineering freshman and a speaker at the protest. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here, and I’m here to fight for people who don’t have a voice, because they really can’t speak out against it, living in fear with all these ICE raids.” 

Genesis Britz, a government and philosophy sophomore, said exercising her freedom of speech and protest rights as a student in the U.S. was important to speak up for others.

“I am so grateful that there is a community here at UT that came together so that we could chant and fight for the same cause,” Britz said. “But also provide each other that love and support as children of immigrants and as people that just have empathy for each other and to build that kind of community during such a difficult time.”

In response to an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty due to increased immigration enforcement across Austin, environmental science freshman Graciella Sanchez said it was important to challenge negative representations of the Hispanic community. 

“It’s our privilege and it’s our right, yes, but it should also be our obligation to come out and speak up for people that we love,” Sanchez said. 

Although the campus community gathered to speak out against Trump’s immigration enforcement, Papari hopes to also motivate the University administration to push back on these policies with them as well. 

“We hope that with this protest, we can both build community, as we have been seeing today, but also would love to see the University of Texas in our push against this to stand up and fight for its own students,” Papari said. “Stand up and fight for its own community, the president, the Board of Regents, the chancellor (and) whoever it is that can make these decisions.”