As Waukegan High School students Jessica Cardenas and Destiny Sanchez reached a boiling point with the immigration enforcement tactics of President Donald Trump’s administration, particularly the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, they said they had to take action.
It took Sanchez, a sophomore at the Brookside campus, and Cardenas, a junior at the Washington building, two days to organize a walkout to protest ICE and the Trump administration’s actions.
“We talked to people and made flyers,” Sanchez said. “Jessica reached out to the governor, the senators and the mayor. It wouldn’t have worked if she hadn’t talked to the mayor, and he got the police to help.”
Cardenas, Sanchez and a number of other others led more than 500 students out of the two school buildings at the end of seventh period at around 1:30 p.m. Friday beginning a march to Veterans Plaza for a rally in downtown Waukegan.
“America is a country of immigrants, not just from Mexico,” Cardenas said at the rally. “This is a free country, and ICE is tearing our country down. We have to stop what ICE is doing.”
As students left the Washington campus for juniors and seniors in droves, they walked almost a mile west to Weiss Field, where they joined forces with freshmen and sophomores who left the nearby Brookside campus.
From Weiss Field, the group of about 500 teens marched to Veterans Plaza just over a mile away near downtown Waukegan, where observations are held for Memorial Day, Veterans Day and other holidays.
One held a sign reading, “My parents fought for our future. Now I fight for theirs.”
Some people, like Jose Ferrera, a junior, were touched personally during the year-plus-long activity of immigration enforcement agents in the area. That included the two-month Operation Midway Blitz last fall, when 76 people were detained in Lake County for allegedly being undocumented immigrants.
Ferrera said his sister’s ex-husband was deported, leaving two of his cousins without a father nearby.
“I feel really sad for the girls,” Ferrera said. “Girls need a father in their life.”
Jazlene Fuentes, another junior, said an uncle was deported, leaving his wife and two daughters behind in Waukegan. It was part of her motivation for joining the walkout.
“We can’t be silent,” Fuentes said. “We have to tell our government it’s wrong. Some of our families can’t do it, so we have to.”
Along with criticizing the government’s immigration enforcement policy, Cardenas ended her speech at the rally with a request for prayer, leading her schoolmates in a call for peaceful resistance.
“We are all part of the United States of America,” Cardenas said. “This is about human rights for all of us. Now let’s join (together) and pray.”
Ketura Quinn, a junior, criticized Trump for failing to follow the Constitution and ICE for its tactics. She said it is time for the younger generation to take the mantle of leadership.
“We live in a free country, and we want to live freely,” Quinn said. “We are the next generation.”
Carmen Marrieta, a senior, criticized immigration enforcement officers for their discriminatory tactics and for breaking apart families.
“This is not right,” Marrieta said. ”They’re targeting people just because they’re not white. At the end of the day, this is about our families.”
