🦄 Borders & Migration

University of Utah Students Protest Against ICE and Police on Campus

By Unicorn Riot

Salt Lake City, UT — On Thursday evening, a crowd of several dozen community members gathered on the University of Utah campus to express solidarity with immigrants and denounce U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and police activity on campus.

Protesters on the concrete steps of a University of Utah building with large white columns hold a banner that appears to say “MECHA STANDS WITH IMMIGRANTS” - a speaker wearing a red kaffiyeh scarf addresses the crowd while reading off their phone - an identical scarf is seen on a protester close to the camera with their back facing the lens - a visible black and white protest sign in the crowd reads “EL PUEBLO UNIDO DEFENDERA - A LAS FAMILIAS MIGRANTES”
A mixed group of protesters scattered across the concrete plaza in front of a large classical hall building by at the University of Utah seen from behind - in the distance a protest banner can be seen on the building’s steps
A person in blue jeans and a puffy gray jacket with a zip-up bright orange mask over their face holds a cardboard sign with “Deport Deez Nuts” written on it in red marker. A well-behaved-looking golden retriever wearing a harness sits to the sign holder’s right. A beautiful sunset can be seen behind a few trees in the background

“People are afraid, but actually I don’t think that fear is even the right word, I don’t think that afraid is the right word. I think the word that we’re looking for is terror, because what ICE is is a terror group — a racist, extremist terror group. They’re operating under an extreme right billionaire agenda of the Trump administration functioning as a white supremacist terror group.”

Speaker at the rally at the University of Utah

For more of what the speaker said, watch our video below:

A student organizer with Mecha, a leftist student group at the University of Utah, demanded that the school be declared a sanctuary campus in the face of recent ICE activity at the college.

“A sanctuary university is a place where ICE is not welcome. Where students can walk into their classrooms and know that their education will not be interrupted by the fear of raids and know that they are safe.”

A student organizer with Mecha

Watch more of their speech at the rally below:

The crowd dispersed after about an hour, following several speakers.

A cluster of protesters, some holding signs, gather at the base of the aforementioned U of U campus building’s large steps as a speaker reading off a piece of paper addresses them with a bullhorn
Unicorn Riot's Coverage of the Sanctuary Movement and U.S. Immigration:

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Categories: Borders & Migration
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Published February 6, 2025
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