Culver City students join nationwide immigration protest

Students from Culver City High School organized a protest last Friday that joined a larger movement to speak out against the recent actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers that have resulted in the deaths of several U.S. citizens seen as legal observers or innocent of any crime attributed to them. The crowd of protestors, originally planning to organize at the Culver Steps on Friday, spilled beyond the Town Plaza into the Culver Boulevard center divider and the adjacent streets.

Along with Board of Education President Stephanie Loredo and Vice President Brian Guerrero, students from Culver City High School made signs expressing their anger and frustration before marching to the Culver Steps to voice those feelings. This protest was connected to a larger demonstration in response to a significant violent escalation by ICE agents in Minnesota, and people across the country were encouraged not to shop, work, or attend school on Friday to show their frustration with this violence and President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Many students at the protests were there to show their shock and disgust at the recent confrontations between ICE agents and U.S. citizens in Minnesota, which resulted in ICE agents killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Footage from both incidents was widely scrutinized on social media, and many viewers believe the actions of those agents to be an unjustified murder rather than self-defense.

“I honestly felt pretty scared because they were both citizens, and they were just in the way, I guess,” CCHS junior Jason Williams said. “It just goes to show how anybody can be impacted and killed by ICE...it’s especially scary because they framed the narrative as if he was threatening them first.”

“I wasn’t surprised, but I was definitely outraged,” CCHS freshman Journey Barber said.

Barber called on George Orwell’s notorious Animal Farm for the sign she made on Friday. An avid writer and reader, Barber said she could connect many details from that book to the way the United States is operating today. Several students expressed their dismay with the state of the country and the Trump Administration after watching videos of the two events.

“There’s a difference between deporting people and killing people and inflicting violence against them,” junior Augusta Poggi said.

“It’s all going to shit really fast,” Barber said, “and there are a lot of stupid people around.”

This feeling did not stop with students; protesting adults at Culver Steps also held signs expressing their exasperation with the current direction of the United States. On top of the recent killings in Minnesota, 43-year-old Keith Porter was killed by ICE agents in Bakersfield on New Year's Eve, and several members of the Culver City community have been detained by ICE agents during Trump’s second term.

“I just want to support the community and everyone in Culver City who are scared for their lives right now,” Poggi said.

Culver City’s Downtown Area is no stranger to protests. There have been a number of smaller locally organized protests, but other larger demonstrations, like the No Kings Protest, also made their way to Culver City. CCHS students organized last February to similarly speak out against the country’s approach to several issues, immigration being one of them.

The student side of Friday’s protest was mainly organized by CCHS Senior Raelie Loredo, daughter of Board President Loredo. The younger Loredo gave remarks at Carlson Park before the group marched to the Culver Steps, emphasizing the importance of her fellow students continuing to show up and provide their voices.

“Let us continue fighting,” she said, “and continue to be angry about what’s going on.