Dozens of students who attend schools in the William S. Hart Union High School District spent their Saturday afternoon protesting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s tactics, an act that’s become a typical sight in Santa Clarita over the past few weeks.
About 70 protesters congregated on the corner of Valencia Boulevard and McBean Parkway – an intersection that protesters have dubbed “Good Trouble Corner” for being the locus of similar recent protests. Several walk-out protests held over the past several weeks have drawn hundreds of students.
Having heard about the Saturday protest in advance, the Hart district issued a statement this past week clarifying that the district was not involved in the protest or its planning. Social media posts promoting the protests had used local high school logos, which was not authorized by the district.
“The Hart district supports civic engagement and peaceful student expression; however, this event is not a district- or school-sponsored event and will not be supervised by the Hart district,” the statement said.
Several of the students protesting Saturday, ranging from middle school to 12th grade, said that they were protesting to represent the voices of people who can’t, for fear of attracting attention from ICE.
That included two seniors from Canyon High School, Charlotte Ortiz and Claire Murphy.
“I’m here for people who can’t be here to stand up for themselves,” Ortiz said. “I want to show my pride as a person who’s mixed and whose grandparents came from (Guatemala) to seek refuge here.”
Murphy added that refuge was precisely what America has historically offered.
“The U.S. doesn’t belong to just one group of people … that’s the foundation this country was built on, and it should still continue to be built on,” Murphy said. “It’s good to stand for.”
At least one protester Saturday didn’t just come to represent friends, or classmates, or anyone she’d read about in the news – she was there to represent her own extended family members, many of whom have self-deported.
Litzy Castrejon, 24, had heard about Saturday’s protest through Valley Defensa, an immigrant advocacy group.
“I’ve had relatives, friends, family, who actually lived here, and with time, they’ve all gone back to their respective countries because they are scared of the administration,” Castrejon said. “As of right now, it’s just my family. It’s like we lost … almost everybody close to us.”
For the students who were motivated by recent headlines – such as the widely circulated story and photo documenting 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos’ detention by ICE – a stranger’s story was more than enough of a reason to protest.
“ICE has done very, very wrong things. You’ve seen the footage, clear as day,” said Collin Park, a junior at West Ranch High School. “I’ve seen the photos, it’s crazy … I genuinely just want to fight for what I believe in.”
