Hundreds of UT students came out to the Texas State Capitol last Friday amid nation-wide protests over the killing of two protestors in Minneapolis by immigration agents. Austin’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, a progressive activist group, held their own protest in front of the University of Texas tower, holding signs reading messages like “Protect Immigrant Students” and “Abolish ICE,” referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A short time later, the students began to walk through campus, eventually arriving towards a larger demonstration already gathered at the capitol.
Maddox Real, an International Relations and Global Studies senior at UT whose family immigrated from Central America, said he feels the university is collaborating with state officials to target immigrant students on campus.
“UT is following the state policy of oppression,” Real said, citing UT’s closure of the Monarch Program in 2024, which helped undocumented students secure financial aid and internships. “They will do whatever it takes to make sure students are basically pacified into being powerless.”
In a statement made to The Daily Texan in 2024, a University spokesperson said the Monarch Program was closed in accordance with SB 17, a state Texas Law that prohibits diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at public universities, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.
Shortly after the students arrived, three were arrested by Department of Public Safety officers, with one juvenile being detained and let go. Officers also deployed a taser in the arrest of a juvenile, according to a statement from DPS Press Secretary Sheridan Nolen.
“Texas is a law-and-order state,” Nolen said. “The department has zero tolerance for individuals who disrupt public order or endanger law enforcement officers.
No further arrests occurred, and the demonstration continued peacefully.
A little over an hour after the Capitol protest began, the crowd, backed by a marching jazz band, began to walk down Congress Avenue, eventually turning on 7th Street as Austin Police redirected traffic.
They eventually gathered in front of Capital Factory, a startup coworking space with ties to defense companies like Palantir, which has provided I.C.E. agents with surveillance technology used in Minneapolis to track protestors, according to the New York Times. The crowd returned to the capitol roughly two hours into the protest, where organizers gave additional speeches before sending people home.
One of the last to leave the capitol grounds was Daniel Henein, a UT senior and a second-generation Egyptian-American. Henein, who said his family has lived in the U.S. for over 30 years, thinks I.C.E.’s deportation campaign could continue to expand beyond Hispanics and Latinos, as has been the case in Minneapolis.
“At any point, they could fully well start going after other immigrants … that’s more or less terrifying,” Henein said. “I’ve been spending a lot of my life effectively being afraid. I’ve just been so tired.”
Henein said he used to be more pessimistic about the fate of his country. Local protests like this one have given him reason to believe in, and fight for, a brighter future.
“If you asked me two years ago, I would have said that both this state and this country are in an ever-downward spiral,” Henein said. “(But) if the rest of the country is like this, then I hope that they keep fighting the good fight. I’m almost certain, at the very least, that we’ll have some kind of impact.”
That future for the country, Henein hopes, will be one where he and his family feel embraced.
“I want to prove to both myself and my family that there is truly a place for us, and (that) we don’t have to hide who we are,” Henein said.
On Saturday, protests continued, bringing more than 5,000 people to Pan American Neighborhood Park.
The rally was led by Democratic leaders including James Talarico, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Texas State Rep. and Gubernatorial challenger Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin) and U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX). The speakers shared sentiments against the increased presence of I.C.E. across the country, addressing the recent deaths of Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed after altercations with I.C.E. agents.
“What happened to Alex Pretti and Nicole Good could happen to someone you love,” Casar said. “It is our job to rally through the fear, to march through the darkness, to march through the silence, until we get to the end of this thing.”
Austin Community College student Theo Northcutt said it was “invigorating” to see Austinites mobilize, referencing the previous night’s protest.
“I think support is building, I think it’s snowballing,” Northcutt said. “It’s just gonna get more and more tense, and I.C.E. is bound to strike again.”
Many Austin residents, such as Katie, a teacher who asked to be identified by her first name only, have attended several protests in recent months. Following the protest, Katie laid a sheet of butcher paper on the ground and asked protestors to write their reason for attending. Some added short, lightheart messages and profanities, while others took their message to heart.
“There’s relational things that we can do where we just can speak to each other and try to come to some common sense, common ground,” Katie said. “We have to come together with people who already know what’s up and what time it is and really start to mobilize.”
Talarico closed out the rally, quoting scripture, addressing the deaths of Pretti and Good, and encouraging attendees to move forward and stand up for what they believe in.
“There has never been a more important time to be a human being,” Talarico said. “America needs patriots now more than ever.”
