by Shawn Nowlin
At a campaign rally in Greensboro, N.C., in Sept. 2024, then Presidential-candidate Kamala Harris warned America, “Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable. He calls Americans the enemy within. He is incapable of taking accountability. If he is elected again, he will use the military to go after American citizens.”
Since being sworn in as President on Jan. 20, 2025, the facts speak for themselves: roughly 15 million people have had their health coverage taken away, SNAP has been slashed with the deepest cut in history and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has taken the lead in carrying out Trump’s mass deportation initiative.
On Jan. 24, just 17 days after ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti suffered the same fate at the hands of a Border Patrol agent. A 37-year-old nurse, videoed from different angles captured Pretti’s final moments in which he appeared to be standing between an agent and a woman who had just been pushed to the ground.
Initially, the response from Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem depicted Pretti as someone who was brandishing a firearm. Unsurprisingly, that turned out not to be true.
In addition to a leadership shakeup, the shooting led to a reduction of agents in Minneapolis and an attempt to distance Trump from the most extreme comments of his closest allies and his own words.
Recently, students at Patrick Henry and William Fleming gathered to protest what is happening across the country. The intentional statement was not just against the ICE actions in Minneapolis, but the Trump Administration overall.
After leaving their classrooms around 2 p.m., students walked outside to a public sidewalk directly across their respective streets.
Some carried signs while others brought flags. Nearly all participated in chants such as “No more ICE” and “Immigrant Lives Matter.”
“We are all out here to protest and protect our people in Roanoke. Many of my friends come from a family of immigrants,” said one student. “We desperately need the unqualified ICE agents off of America’s streets because they have gotten way out of hand.”
“While I am for legal immigration enforcement, I am strongly against government overreach,” explained another. “My parents told me that this is exactly what would happen if Trump ever got back into the White House.”
By law, Virginia schools are required to provide free public education to all children, regardless of immigration status.
Said Roanoke City Public Schools in a statement, “We are aware that students from both Patrick Henry and William Fleming walked out as part of scheduled, student-organized peaceful protests. Our understanding is that this was part of a broader nationwide protest.”
