Pacifica High School Students – more than 50 of them- walked out of their final period class at 2 pm sharp on Tuesday, January 20, and began demonstrating on the corner of Lampson and Knott in Garden Grove. They joined a reported 1,000 Orange County residents participating in a nationwide walkout.
“One year into Trump’s second regime, we face an escalating fascist threat,” says the Free America Walkout website. Tens of thousands across the country signed up for the January 20th walkout of school, commerce, and work on the first anniversary of President Trump’s return to office. Dozens of supporters joined the students in filling all four corners of the intersection as drivers rolled by, blaring their horns.
For student organizer Skye Cervantes, the fatal shooting of activist Renee Nicole Good by a federal agent in Minneapolis was a call to action. “I think that that was a terrible event that could have been prevented if ICE had been de-escalated or even abolished. It is an organization that is terrorizing our communities, taking apart families, and we need to put an end to it.”
The Guardian news publication has been tracking ICE data and calculated the total number of people the Trump Administration has arrested at more than 328,000 and deported nearly 327,000. President Trump had vowed to pursue undocumented “violent criminals,” but the government’s own statistics show the largest group of arrestees have no criminal convictions of any kind. Facilities nationwide have been plagued by allegations of inhumane and cruel treatment, which the administration denies.
The killing of Renee Good, shot while attempting to drive her vehicle away from ICE agents, triggered massive demonstrations across the country. “She was an innocent woman, a mother,
a wife. She was an observer. She was just trying to protect her community,” says Cervantes…