FOLEY SQUARE, Manhattan (WABC) — Recent ICE operations and the federal immigration crackdown has prompted high school students nationwide to walk out of class on Friday.
Crowds of students staged anti-ICE protests across the country, including in New York. Overwhelmed with emotion, one high school student opened up to Eyewitness News about her daily fear.
“I don’t want my family to be deported, and it’s scary for me, you know. My family deserved everything — they worked hard for everything,” the girl said.
“There’s no reason for them to be gone. They worked as hard as they can in order for us to be a great life.”
The girl was one of dozens of students speaking up at an anti-ICE protest at Foley Square, where things quickly turned violent.
“I asked for the microphone and they gave it to me. I said my opinion: God bless America and I love ICE and I love Trump, and they attacked me. They hit me, they took my headphones, they poured water on me,” one boy said.
Opposite sides clashing over the presence of immigration enforcement agents in their communities.
“Kids can’t even go to school because the parents have to take them. There’s no way they can take them without parents getting caught,” another girl said. “Us as students, we have to speak up for our people.”
Dare to Struggle, an organization that aims to target injustice, urged students to walk out of their classes and campuses and turn up the heat on ICE. From Mamaroneck High School on Long Island, to Forest Hills in Queens and beyond, teenagers answered the call.
The protests come as ICE enforcement operations continue across the Tri-State and the country. Protesters say what they want is simple.
“We’re demanding they release all people in ICE detention, that the ICE agents who have killed people and shot and brutalized people should be thrown in prison, and they need to end mass deportations,” said one person from Dare to Struggle.
Students say they’ll continue to march until their voices are heard.
“Some people don’t have no choice but other to leave their country in order to provide for their kids,” one girl said.
Students who attended the protest at Foley Square marched past 26 Federal Plaza and the immigration court at 201 Varick Street, where there have been reports of ICE agents detaining immigrants at their court hearings.
Dare to Struggle says it is planning a series of speak-outs next month.
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