About 300 UC Berkeley students and community members rallied yesterday against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, on the steps of Sproul Hall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The rally was organized by the campus chapters of Students for Socialism, or SFS; Students for Justice in Palestine; Students Organizing for Liberation; and Young Democratic Socialists of America.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Students began gathering around 2 p.m., and the event lasted about an hour and a half.<\/p>\n
Speakers encouraged the crowd to join a \u201cNational Shutdown\u201d on Friday, in which people skip work or school, as well as refrain from making purchases.Activists hope that a large turnout will demonstrate to the federal government that everyday people have power over the national economy, which they can leverage in the face of increased ICE violence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s rally was spurred by this month\u2019s ICE operations in Minneapolis. President Donald Trump has deployed 2,000 federal agents to the city since the beginning of January \u2014 the largest immigration operation in U.S. history. ICE officers have since killed two residents: Ren\u00e9e Good and Alex Pretti.<\/p>\n
At least six immigrants have died in ICE custody since the beginning of this year. In addition, an off-duty ICE officer murdered Los Angeles resident Keith Porter on Dec. 31.<\/p>\n
Attendees chanted \u201cNo ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA,\u201d and \u201cmoney for jobs and education, not for war and deportation.\u201d They also held signs that read \u201cF— ICE\u201d and \u201cICE kills with impunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speakers said they were answering a call to action for solidarity from the Somali Student Association at the University of Minnesota, who organized a general strike last Friday in Minneapolis with thousands of attendees.<\/p>\n
Sebasti\u00e1n Puerta, an economics Ph.D. student and head steward for United Auto Workers Local 4811, cited the protest as an example of the working people\u2019s power to stand up in the face of state brutality.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Minnesota proved last week (is) that virtue is common, that courage is not rare,\u201d Puerta said. \u201cWe, not masked ICE agents, are the brave and the many, and it is they that are the weak and the few.\u201d<\/p>\n
SFS organizer Jordan Perry, a UC Berkeley School of Law student, said she has seen more turnout to meetings, actions and events from the Berkeley community following the ICE escalation in Minneapolis this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Campus juniors Citlaly Espino and Mia Vidal said they missed meetings and class to be at the rally. Espino plans to attend the national shutdown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI see my people here and that makes me so happy,\u201d Espino said. \u201cIt\u2019s very rare, the occasions that I get to see my Hispanic community show up and to know that we\u2019re here at Berkeley.\u201d<\/p>\n
Campus freshman Lexi Limon\u2019s family background motivated her to attend the rally.<\/p>\n
Limon, who is Native American and Mexican, emphasized the irony of deporting people on land that had been taken from Indigenous people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only are we fighting for everyone in America, but we\u2019re fighting for our families,\u201d Limon said. \u201cIt\u2019s just so hurtful to see that these people, these grandparents, these children, are being treated like nothing on stolen land. No one\u2019s illegal on stolen land.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speakers encouraged attendees to join them on Crescent Lawn at noon for Friday\u2019s national shutdown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The group will then march to the Downtown Berkeley BART Station and head to Dolores Park in San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople everywhere are feeling really energized. I definitely see that in the crowd,\u201d Perry said. \u201cOne of the things we really tried to do today was be like: You are an organizer, your job is to bring that energy and to help other people harness that energy also.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 300 UC Berkeley students and community members rallied yesterday against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[73654,3767,9419,76049,14886,536,76048,76050,4226,76042,143,145,144,3783,76045,101,76046,76043,30725,68193,76041,30097,575,76047,76044,76051,46440],"class_list":["post-154919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alex-pretti","tag-bart","tag-berkeley-law","tag-citlaly-espino","tag-dolores-park","tag-donald-trump","tag-jordan-perry","tag-mia-vidal","tag-minnesota","tag-national-shutdown-day","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-palestine","tag-rene-nicole-good","tag-san-francisco","tag-sebastin-puerta","tag-somali-student-association","tag-sproul-hall","tag-students-for-justice-in-palestine","tag-students-for-socialism","tag-students-organizing-for-liberation","tag-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","tag-united-auto-workers-local-4811","tag-university-of-minnesota","tag-west-crescent-lawn","tag-young-democratic-socialists-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}