Baltimore City College students and advocates led a walkout Thursday to protest the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and stand in solidarity with the people of Minneapolis opposing agents’ actions in their community.
Students Organizing a Multicultural Open Society (SOMOS) is a student-led group tackling systemic injustices in Baltimore City Public Schools. The group and its advocates planned the walkout for 1:30 p.m. from the current Baltimore City College campus at the University of Baltimore. The demonstration included students from Baltimore City College as well as other area schools.
They are calling on legislators to ban collaboration of local law enforcement with ICE through 287(g) agreements.
They also want legislation regarding the restriction of teacher and administrator collaboration with ICE. In addition to standing in solidarity with activists in Minneapolis, the group calls for the elimination of ICE facilities from their neighborhoods and communities across the country.
“For so many of us, the fear of ICE pervades our daily lives,” reads a press release. “Students, teachers, community members, hard workers, faith leaders, health care officials, and neighbors, citizen and noncitizen alike, are under the current threat of a violent, imperialist regime that has origins that date further back than the Trump Administration.”
Students drew throughlines from historical violent and oppressive practices to ICE’s current tactics. They cited slave catchers, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Proud Boys, likening them to ICE agents responsible for killing Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Keith Porter, Jr., and more.
“We have seen the tear gassing of peaceful protesters exercising their first amendment rights,” students wrote in the press release. “We have seen the kidnapping of children, in bunny hats and backpacks. We know of rapes, denial of health care access, and lack of food and transparency within holding centers. And we must ask, How much more violence does it take, for you to realize something is wrong?”
SOMOS wants members of their community to urge the Maryland Senate to pass SB0245, which would end 287(g) agreements between local law officials and ICE (Maryland’s House of Delegates and Senate have approved bills banning such parternships, with the legislation slated to go into effect once the governor signs them.); the Maryland General Assembly to pass SB0001/HB0155, which would prohibit ICE agents from wearing face masks, and they are calling for an “end of the unlawful occupation of neighborhoods, cities and states by ICE, and the removal of detention/holding centers from our communities.”
