Hundreds of students at an Oregon high school staged a walkout following the brutal detainment of a 17-year-old by ICE agents.
Roughly 300 McMinnville High School students joined the Monday walkout to protest against federal immigration enforcement. The movement came a few days after a high school senior was detained by ICE agents while on his lunch break.
High School Students Stage Walkout Following ICE Activities
The protesting students walked out of school "in response to the ICE activity in our community last week," said McMinnville School District Interim Superintendent Kourtney Ferrua. The situation comes as video footage on social media showed the protests with hundreds of young individuals and other people lining Northwest Adams Street.
Many of the people who joined the movement held signs protesting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) operations. ICE agents reportedly detained a 17-year-old student, identified as Christian Jimenez, on Friday while he was driving his father's car during the school's lunch break, according to Oregon Live.
A video, which was shared by Jimenez' brother, the teenager told officers that he was a United States citizen, but they detained him anyway. In a separate post, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defended the officials by saying that the 17-year-old student tried to use his car to "violently attack" ICE and border patrol agents.
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The department said that Jimenez colluded with the driver of another vehicle to "barricade" agents before fleeing. It added that agents arrested the 17-year-old for allegedly impeding federal law enforcement officers.
The other individual who was detained was identified as 20-year-old Eduardo Soto Elias, who, with Jimenez, was taken to the Portland ICE facility for processing. It remains unclear if there were any federal charges that were brought against the two, KOIN reported.
Safety in the Community
One McMinnville High student, Alexis Hernandez Flores, said that after what happened to Jimenez, he does not feel safe going to school anymore. He added that it does not feel safe walking the streets of McMinnville anymore.
DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, Tricia McLaughlin, said that the incident is not isolated and reflects a "growing and dangerous trend" of individuals who use vehicles to impede and obstruct law enforcement officers.
She added that the department's law enforcement is facing a 1,000 percent increase in assaults against them as they work to arrest and remove alleged "dangerous criminals" from the U.S. McLaughlin said that anyone who impedes, obstructs, or assaults a federal officer will be "prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," as per KGW.
