A protest for immigration reformation started on Sanford Mall around noon on Monday, which was composed of students advocating for the rights of immigrants.
Approximately 15 students gathered peacefully with signs and chanted together.
Kayla Ordaz-Magana, a senior sociology major and president of the Latin Hispanic Alliance at App State, helped organize the event.
Ordaz-Magana said the protest was not involved with LHA and was organized independently from the group. She said she organized the protest by word of mouth and messages encouraging students to attend and bring their friends in a large group chat.
Ordaz-Magana held a sign reading “you want the culture but not the people” and gathered with students who she said she had previously met from classes or the club.
“People want the food, they want the music, but they don’t actually want the people who make it,” she said.
Ordaz-Magana said there are 45.3 million people living in the U.S. who are immigrants and felt it was important to stand together as a community to advocate for reformation.
“They think that just because they did something, or that they crossed illegally for the chance at the American dream, that they should be criminals and that they should be chastised and removed from the states,” she said. “If you go back into our historical context, a lot of the land was stolen from Mexico. It was stolen from the native Indigenous people.”
Ethan Gonzalez, a freshman philosophy major, said he decided to join after seeing the protest today. He said he understands the feeling of seeing the “hateful rhetoric” around the conservation and feels the need to stand up for people who he feels are being unfairly targeted based on misinformation.
He said that by coming together, the group was able to spread their message to people who would not otherwise hear it.
“I think that it’s important that we stand for ourselves and that we come together,” he said. “I would have not found these people if they were all separate.”
Ian Benitez, a sophomore history education major, said he was coming out of his class in Anne Belk Hall when he saw the group of students and heard shouting about advocating for immigrants and decided to join.
Benitez said he believes actively protesting is a way to keep people aware about current issues with immigration.
“I think that everyone kind of just wants to sweep immigration and things like that under the rug,” he said. “Like, ‘if it doesn’t affect me personally, then I shouldn’t have to worry about it.’ But the fact is that even if it isn’t affecting me personally, it’s affecting the whole country.”
He said he believes no matter why someone might be against immigration, in reality, using any reason to keep people out of the country without first completely exploring the full story goes against what the U.S. says it will abide by in the Constitution.
(Simon Jarman)
Monica Ruiz-Bautista, a sophomore political science major, said she wanted to speak about the rights of the Latin Hispanic and immigrant communities.
She was aware of the protest before it started and said she immediately started working on a sign to bring to the protest when she heard about the event, which reads “no human is illegal.”
Ruiz-Bautista used the colors of the Mexican flag to represent the blending of her culture.
“I represent with two flags,” she said. “I speak two languages.”
She said she also wanted to voice her concern about citizenships and rights as it relates to the 14th Amendment.
“It’s crazy to believe that they’re trying to target Indigenous people, which I think is pretty crazy to even think about because they were here before all of us,” she said.
