DUNLAP, Ill. – Protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement have come to one central Illinois high school.
On Friday afternoon, at the end of a half-day of school, around 40 Dunlap High School students stood in front of the district’s office building to protest ICE.
The group blew whistles and chanted slogans such as “ICE Out” and “Voices for All.” Most held signs, with some alluding to Anne Frank hiding from Nazi forces in Germany, and one comparing ICE agents to the KKK. Supporters of the protesters honked horns as they drove by, while some blasted pro-American songs and burned their tires in front of the group.
Senior Sammit Chidambaram organized the protest. He says the inspiration came over worries that ICE could target Peoria County immigrants, and how immigration agents have conducted operations in Minnesota. Chidambaram added that illegal felons should be deported, but those immigrants who are hard workers should not be harassed, and that ICE is not going after just the illegal felons.
Chidambaram says the reason Friday afternoon was picked to protest was because of the half-day, with school leaders not wanting learning disrupted for protests.
“By doing this civil duty protest, we are able to directly get involved with the law and get involved with politics in a peaceful and unobtrusive way,” Chidambaram said.
Chidambaram says another reason for the protest was to combat some pro-ICE t-shirts that were worn by students inside the school. He says those students have their First Amendment right to wear them, but his group wanted to do the same with Friday’s protest.
Not everyone in the protest group on Friday was anti-ICE. Senior Magnus Orman, who is set to join the Marines in June, arrived on the scene, waving a flag with the phrase “Deport Illegals Support ICE” printed on it.
“If there’s only people against it, then that’s what everyone’s going to believe,” Orman said.
Orman believes there should only be legal immigration in the country. He says he knows people at the school who have fought for legal immigration for years, and doesn’t feel it’s right that illegal aliens should have the same benefits legal immigrants do.
Orman says despite disagreeing with his anti-ICE classmates, he supports their right to voice their opinion. And he says people should not be intimidated to voice what they believe in, no matter what size a group is.
Chidambaram is hopeful that Friday’s protest is not the group’s last word. He wants to see anti-ICE policies in other cities come to Peoria, such as Chicago banning immigration agents from city buildings.
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