Protesters across San Diego joined a nationwide walkout and demonstration against the Trump administration Tuesday.
Walkouts were planned at various locations throughout the county including Waterfront Park downtown, National City, El Cajon, Escondido and Encinitas.
Students at Lincoln High School also joined the movement. Teachers and San Diego police monitored the demonstration there as students walked around the block.
“I'm organizing this protest, and my main reason is because I feel like America doesn't have freedom, and I feel like a lot of it has to do with our president,” Lincoln High School student Sheila Benitez told KPBS.
Benitez organized the student walkout along with fellow student Makayla Day, aiming to uplift young voices as part of the national movement.
“The enforcements that ICE has right now are unjust, and that also makes it really scary for parents to take their kids to school — even to go get groceries,” Day said. “The community really has to uplift each other because the enforcements that ICE are taking are really scary for all of us.”
The walkouts mark one year of the second Trump administration. Organizers said they are walking away from fascism and toward a “free America.”
“The best way to really get to the heart of our issues and stop billionaires is to stop putting money in their banks,” said Lisa Doell, who helped organize walkouts in San Diego. “So by shutting down the economy, we are no longer funding them or using our tax dollars for their own benefit of tax breaks.”
Doell spoke to KPBS Midday Edition ahead of the walkouts. She told Midday Edition host Jade Hindmon they are protesting, “to shut down billionaires, shut down fascists and shut down polluters.”
Earlier this month, people in cities across America took to the streets to protest the killing of Renee Good by a federal agent in Minneapolis. In San Diego, an organizer of one such protest was detained by federal authorities.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has targeted local surfers, green card applicants, and legal residents. High-profile raids like one in South Park last year have left communities in distress.
“Many nonwhite U.S. citizens now have to routinely carry their passports so that they can prove their citizenship if they're stopped, and that effectively confers a kind of second-class citizenship on anyone that might be suspected by ICE of not being an American,” said Casey Dominguez, a University of San Diego political science professor. “And that’s a deliberate policy of the administration.”
Dominguez spoke to KPBS Midday Edition host Jade Hindmon about the shift in immigration policy since Trump’s second term began.
“He's been deporting people that generally, or that disproportionately compared to those that had been previously deported, don't have criminal convictions or have very, very minor criminal infractions,” Dominguez said.
Protesters clashed with ICE last November during an operation at the 47th St. Trolley Station that turned into chaos. The agency continues to defend its actions, arguing that the aggressive tactics are necessary to complete its deportation mission.
“ICE remains committed to enforcing the laws written by Congress and to protecting the communities we serve with professionalism and integrity,” the agency said in a statement to KPBS media partner 10News at the time.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday meandered through a list of his administration’s accomplishments before taking shots at the United Nations and doubling down on what he sees as a need for the U.S. to control Greenland while speaking at a White House press briefing.
The rare, nearly two-hour appearance comes the day before he’s scheduled to deliver a key address to an audience of global elites and billionaires at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
