Youth walk out of school, join protest against ICE

Presenter: Local youth walked out of middle school  Jan. 20 to join a protest against ICE and KEPW was there. Jana Thrift:

Jana Thrift (KEPW): I am standing here with a group of youth. There’s a lot of young people on the corner here next to the ICE building today, and they left their school and they’re here outside the ICE building. How did you end up coming? 

Youth at protest (Jan. 20, 2026): One of my friends had told us that there was going to be a walkout at school, and I decided to join because they said that I should go because of my dad and how he got deported. So I said, Yeah, sure. So then I didn’t know originally we were coming here and then I found out, so that I decided to come here. 

Jana Thrift (KEPW): And will you tell me a little bit about your story? 

Youth at protest: My biological father had gotten deported before I was even born and he had always told me that he would come back, but they never let him back because he could never get his papers. 

Then my mom had remarried with my stepfather when I was three. My stepfather had been there since I was three to six, and then they started coming to our house and just started yelling at us that we needed to go back to our country.

So then he got tackled by ICE one day, ’cause he didn’t have his papers when he came here. He got deported and now I haven’t seen him in about six years. 

Jana Thrift (KEPW): Wow. That’s a long time. That’s crazy. How old are you? 

Youth at protest: I am 13. 

Jana Thrift (KEPW): And so, what do you think is important about coming to things like this? 

Youth at protest: I feel like the most important part is supporting people who have been deported and like, are trying to prove our point that it is bad for people to come tackle people for not having papers for a year, even though they’ve been here for more than 10 years or anything. Yeah. 

In my personal opinion, I’m happy that so many people came out today because I thought it was only gonna be me and like a few of my friends. But it has been honestly awesome.

Youth at protest: Yeah, it’s really horrible about what ICE is doing. They do not care about the Constitution. They do not care about who they are taking. They don’t care about your birth certificate. They have ripped peoples’ birth certificates. They have illegally broken into people’s homes. They have killed babies. They have killed children. They have killed high schoolers in Minneapolis. They threw a smoke bomb at teenagers at schools, and they have died. 

There. So there are so many things that they are doing that is illegal and unconstitutional and no one is doing anything about it. And being silent about the problem is being a part of the problem. Yeah. If you are not actively protesting and actively putting your opinion out there, you are a part of the problem and you are making everything worse. 

Jana Thrift (KEPW): ‘Democracy dies in silence.’ 

Youth at protest: It does, right? It does. If you do not speak up about the things that are going wrong and you live in silence, everything is just going to fall down, even if you agree with it or do not agree with it. (Yep.) This is the time that you need to be open about things. This is not time to be quiet. (Yep.)

Jana Thrift (KEPW): And this sign says, ‘Quit Trump Goon Squad’ on the front. 

Youth at protest: Yes. Trump has said in multiple interviews that ICE is still not doing enough. He has said that ICE is still not doing enough. It’s not even just a few murders anymore, it’s not just one minority being attacked anymore. It’s everyone. If you’re a woman, if you’re gay, if you’re part of the LGBTQ, if you’re any color, Black or just a little bit darker, if you’re tan, if you are any group of minority, if you are not a white straight man that has money, you are targeted. You are in danger. 

Another youth at protest: Hi. I was made aware of this protest by some of my friends at school and I thought that I should go because one, Trump needs to be out of office. He is a rapist, a felon, and just an awful person. And as a member of of the LGBTQ (community), I have to fear for my life and my communities because they are targeting us as well. 

Jana Thrift (KEPW): Tell me what your sign says. 

Youth at protest: It says, you don’t get to talk about illegal when you voted for a felon. Trump has 34 counts and he is in office. But when someone is coming here to make their life better or their family’s life better, they are considered illegal.

Jana Thrift (KEPW): This is not okay. And it’s, you know, the youth are showing up, they’re speaking out, they’re saying that it is not okay. And they seem a little upset and angry about it 

Youth at protest: Because we are!

Presenter: Eugene Police said they were called to the Federal Building, 211 E. 7th Ave., at 4:46 p.m. Jan. 20. Federal Protective Services told EPD that minors were among a group of protesters blocking the gate. Jana Thrift:

Jana Thrift (KEPW): All right, so we just had an interesting incident here where we had all these youth out here and when the ICE and Department of Homeland Security folks came out as if they were going to leave their work as usual, we had these young folks stand up and kind of say that they’re angry and try to do something about the situation. I’d love to hear from one of them. Will you describe, what did you just experience here? 

Youth at protest: So ICE came out. They tried, when they did come out and the gate opened, they had tried to tell us to move out of the way so they could leave and everybody started screaming at them that they were in the wrong because of them and everything and ICE in general.

And, like, all of the kids, they were just like yelling at them. And then they finally gave up after like an hour or more of just standing there, they finally left. 

Jana Thrift (KEPW): Yeah. It seemed really great to have you young folks push back and they retreated of sorts. 

Youth at protest: Yeah. Yeah, no problem.

Presenter: We checked in with Jana Thrift from KEPW the next day for her reflections on the protest.

Jana Thrift (KEPW): We came around the corner because I had noticed that there was a big move of people and they all moved at once and I was like, ‘I wonder, is there something happening? Why did they all move at once?’

And so then we walked over and instantly I was like, ‘Wow, there’s over 20 kids here, and they are all very young.’ They’re coming from the middle school, a lot of them.

One of the young people was saying that when they got ready to actually go to the ICE facility, the principal actually encouraged students not to go to the ICE facility and about 100 students according to one of the kids, a large amount of them actually didn’t continue going.

There was definitely a couple of older people that seemed like they were there with the kids still, but in general, the kids that stayed were staying on their own volition. There was definitely some anger.

And Jetty (Etty) was like, ‘I kind of want to go home, but I don’t think I should leave all these kids here.’ There’s a little strip where that driveway comes out of the ICE building that has yellow across it, and it was very clear that the adults knew that you should not go over that strip. Technically that becomes not public property because you must be on the ICE facility property if you’re over that strip.

And it was not the adults, I promise you. It was not the adults that were trying to block that driveway because you could see that the adults knew that there were some lines that they understood that they weren’t supposed to cross, whereas the kids—not so familiar.

And so the kids were like very, like, ‘We’re not going to,’ you know. ‘We’re going to have ourselves heard.’ That’s what it felt like from the kids, you know? And then it was like, ‘And no, we’re not moving.’

It was a powerful moment, I have to say. It was a really powerful moment when all those police officers are there and you could tell they’re trying to figure out from the word from above whether they’re going to do something in retaliation. If there had been adults in that road, they would’ve pepper-sprayed us all. It would’ve not gone the way it did.

The only reason they second-guessed themselves was because almost everyone blocking were young people and you could tell that they were double-guessing whether that was the right choice. They clearly were communicating with somebody.

And then all of a sudden, they pulled back. They just backed out. They were all like clearly still communicating, figuring out exactly what the plan was, and then there was a moment where you see them start grabbing their backpacks and locking the door.

So, whoever the person from above was, they said, ‘Yeah, let’s not pepper-spray 13-year-olds,’ which seemed very appropriate to me.

But the power of those young voices, being able to be heard in a different way than what they would have done to adults in that same position, and that seemed super powerful to me, and I know that it empowered the kids to feel like their voices had made a difference.

They had put a cog in the wheel of the machine. You know, that’s what it felt like, and I’m sure that’s what it felt like to them, and that’s what it felt like I was witnessing.

Our youth are seeing and what they’re experiencing, they have something to say. I was like, ‘Ooh, boy, do they have something to say,’ you know? And they’re being affected too, in a big way, and all of this is going to change their futures more than anyone’s. 

When it was all over, some of them were like, ‘We’ve got to come back here and try to do more and be involved with trying to make this change,’ that they clearly have an opinion about. 

Presenter: KEPW’s Jana Thrift reports from the Federal Building Jan. 20 as middle school students walk out of classes to join the protests against ICE.