Students gathered on Eastern Illinois University’s Library Quad Sunday afternoon to march in protest of the increasing operations of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement across the state of Illinois.
The collaborative “emergency protest” was organized by the Central Illinois Party for Socialism and Liberation, with EIU’s Students for Socialism group leading the event.
“It is not only our right to protest today but our responsibility,” said SFS President Jason Farias. “We’re hosting this rally to make our demands clear and make our community heard.”
Farias opened the protest with a speech to a group of around 40 students at the Mellin Steps, addressing the need for young people to use their voice despite the worries surrounding protest.
He led chants of, “Say it loud and say it clear, we do not have any fear. Say it once and say it twice, we will not put up with ICE.”
Other speakers included EIU alum Nicholas Tkachuk and guest speaker Cecelia English, founder of the Eastern Illinois Indivisible network. They spoke about socialist perspectives and personal stories of protest, respectively.
Tkachuk called for federal ICE spending to be directed towards areas that benefit the working class. This comes after the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which passed in July and gave federal agencies including ICE $170 billion to fund a more efficient detainment and deportation process.
“We must call for the funding used for ICE to be used to actually support working people,” Tkachuk said. “We must make our voices undeniable.”
English shared her experience protesting, including in Chicago, where ICE enforcement and resulting protests have been causing increased tensions.
“We demand our communities to become sanctuaries not hunting grounds,” she said.
The protestors then began to march. Students with picket signs branded with “the workers’ struggle has no borders” and “defend immigrant families” moved through EIU’s South Quad, before looping back to the north of the Library Quad.
Further chants of “The people united will never be defeated” were led by Farias.
“If you look at everything happening across the state right now, you see the Trump administration escalating its attacks on immigrants, on migrant families,” said Farias. “You’re seeing the escalation of ICE activity, especially in Chicago.”
He went on to reference Mexican immigrant Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, who was fatally shot during an ICE traffic stop in Chicago on Sept. 12.
“Over last weekend, we witnessed the killing of a father in an ICE interaction. So right now, I think it’s really important for all of us to come out, make demands to say we want to abolish ICE, demand full rights for all immigrants [and say] that we want an end to federal troops in our state,” said Farias.
After the protest concluded, English touched on the general importance of young people being politically involved and making their voices heard.
“We want to hear what you think. I want so badly for [young people] to take what is happening on campus and expand,” she said.
With ICE having the ability to make arrests without a judicial warrant and solely based on reasonable suspicion, another main goal of SFS is to ensure students know their rights in the event of being stopped, Farias said.
The group is hosting an event in collaboration with the Latin American Student Organization at the Booth Library on Wednesday to share advice on these situations.
Ethan Vine can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].
