Teens across Las Cruces unite to protest ICE

I witnessed the most remarkable demonstration I’ve ever seen on Thursday. Students from across Las Cruces left their high schools on foot to meet up with each other and protest the federal government’s deportation efforts.

The largest gathering took place around lunchtime at Mayfield High School. Students from the opposite corner of the city left Centennial High just after school started. They walked to Las Cruces High, where more students joined them.

Then students from both schools marched to Mayfield. Staff there worked to deter their students from leaving, so the teens talked, cheered and chanted with each other through the fence that surrounds the school.

I counted 150-200 students on both sides of the fence at that point, many raising their voices together.

Centennial High student Malachi Trujillo, who walked 10 miles to Mayfield, told me that what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents are doing is wrong.

“America should be a place for all people,” he said.

Gabriel Herrera, another Centennial student, agreed.

“We are here to show that we are not just going to sit idly by as these monsters ravage our country,” he said.

I followed the students around the city — and, for full disclosure, the group included, at different times, my daughter and my wife’s daughter. What I witnessed gave me some hope for the future of our country.

I saw people who care deeply about their friends and family members. I saw them grounded in a deep sense of right and wrong and determined to be heard. I saw almost all of them behaving responsibly, obeying traffic laws, and being respectful even as they resisted directions from school personnel to stay on campus.

‘Walk out! Walk out!’

Mayfield was effectively locked down when students from Centennial and Las Cruces arrived at the parking lot of Zeebs, a restaurant across the street.

Officials stood at the entrance to the school watching those who drove in and out. Security guards walked the permitter. Teens were pressed up against the fence, watching for the Centennial and Las Cruces students to arrive.

When those students showed up at Zeebs, a police officer opened the bed of his pickup truck to reveal cases of bottled water. Thirsty teens accepted the gift.

They gathered on the southeast corner of the intersection facing Mayfield students who were behind the fence on the opposite corner. They began chanting: “Walk out! Walk out!”

It was an invitation to join them in a shared act of resistance.

Excitement and hope

Eventually they crossed the intersection to meet up with the Mayfield students through the fence. A few Mayfield students walked past staff, who didn’t stop them, and left campus. I also saw two teens climb over the fence.

Those who walked miles for this moment cheered on each act of defiance from a Mayfield student.

Teens carried signs with slogans like “Hate doesn’t make America great,” “Abolish ICE,” “‘We the people’ means everyone,” and “Ignoring it is what the Germans did.” A couple of teens wore Mexican flags like capes. Another was waving a flag that was half Mexican and half American.

I heard stories from teens throughout the day about immigrants being deported, about federal agents roughing up protesters, about the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. I saw anger in teens’ faces and heard it the words they shared with me.

As the protest gained momentum, I also saw excitement and hope.

Support and opposition

Throughout the day, motorists waved and honked in support. A smaller number expressed disagreement — sometimes with middle fingers and sometimes with words.

One man driving a grey truck with a diesel engine slowed next to protesters as they walked on the sidewalk along Hoagland Road. Then the driver revved his engine to release exhaust and sped away. The black cloud settled over the teens before dissipating.

A few teens yelled back at motorists who slowed to express disagreement with their cause. Twice I saw water bottles sail through the air toward vehicles. But most kids just kept chanting, and a few told others to behave.

One motorist tossed water at a group of students. Teens described a man in a white truck circling back several times to show them his middle finger over and over.

Las Cruces police officers did an admirable job of ensuring the teens’ safety without interfering. They followed at a distance. When the teens needed to cross a street where there weren’t pedestrian signals, officers stopped traffic to facilitate their passage.

Gathering downtown

From Mayfield, the group of teens marched to the downtown plaza. Meanwhile, students from Arrowhead Park Early College High School on the New Mexico State University campus headed north to Las Cruces High. Then 13 of them got on a city bus to join the protest downtown. At least three students from Organ Mountain High School also caught a ride to the plaza.

I counted 85 students from at least five area high schools downtown. When I arrived some were holding signs and chanting at motorists. Others were dancing on the plaza stage.

After a few moments, most were standing on the edge of Main Street waving signs and cheering at motorists who honked in agreement.

One man driving a black SUV slowed long enough to say something. A teen tossed a plastic water bottle at his vehicle.

Then the students marched to Albert Johnson Park. Many were cheering and dancing to music as they walked.

They arrived at the intersection of Picacho Avenue and Main Street and were just starting to chant when three girls approached me, directed my attention to a man sitting in a black SUV across the street, and said the man pointed a gun at some of the protesters.

His driver’s side window was rolled down and his left arm was hanging out. I didn’t see a firearm.

I asked if they were sure. They were. I told them to take cover or head into the library, and to tell others as they were going. They sprung into action.

A confrontation

Word spread quickly. My daughter was already heading into the library when I spotted her. She was safe.

I called 911.

While some teens took cover, others continued their protest. A few were yelling at the man across the street.

While I was relaying what was happening to a dispatcher, a couple of teens stepped into the street to approach the man.

Another man — a dad who had driven his kids from Organ Mountain to the protest who I later learned is Linzy Hall II — stepped in front of the teens and crossed the street. The teens stayed back.

As Hall approached, the other man stepped out of his vehicle. He took off his sweatshirt. Wearing only a blue tank top, he looked ready to fight. He wasn’t holding a gun.

The two exchanged words I couldn’t hear. Then the man leaned into his vehicle and retrieved the weapon.

A hero

A city utilities vehicle pulled up just then and stopped next to the imminent fight. The man holding the weapon got back in his SUV. Then sirens. The man fled south on Main Street. Two police vehicles chased him.

I got off the phone with the dispatcher and confirmed my daughter was in the library and safe. I checked on some other kids and talked with a grandmother who was there with her grandson.

I gave a statement to a police officer, who told me they had detained the man and the kids were safe. Hall gave a statement too. When he was done, teens surrounded him. They cheered, clapped and shouted that he was a hero.

He really was. I took a photo.

A BB gun

When I got home, I talked with the Las Cruces Police Department’s spokesman, Dan Trujillo. He told me the man with the weapon was Harvey Peña, 41. Officers pulled him over near the downtown post office and approached him with guns drawn because they believed he was armed.

They later found his weapon up the street, and it turned out to be a BB gun. He tossed it out the window while officers were chasing him, Trujillo said.

Because he fled, Peña faces a charge of resisting or obstructing police. Officers were not able to charge him with assault because no one who saw him point the BB gun at the teens came forward, LCPD officials told me.

I shared what I saw with an officer and he told me it wasn’t enough for an assault charge. Peña will have to appear in court on the misdemeanor charge, but he was not arrested.

‘No reason for him to pull a gun’

Remember the motorist who’d passed the teens on the plaza and had a water bottle thrown at his vehicle? A teen told me he was the man with the gun, that he’d come back after that incident.

I shared that with Trujillo. He said officers heard the same thing.

“But that’s no reason for him to pull a gun,” Trujillo said.

The Las Cruces Public Schools put out a statement around lunchtime, before the incident at the park, praising students for “the thoughtful and peaceful way they chose to share their voices” while also encouraging them to return to class.

After things got scary, LCPS sent a sharper message to parents: “We are monitoring social media posts related to future protests, and we strongly encourage students to remain on campus during the school day and to coordinate with school administration if they wish to assemble before school, after school or during lunch,” it reads.

‘We’re proud of the kids’

A man with a temper and a BB gun who scared some kids doesn’t get the last word in this story. I’m going to bring it back to the students.

“We’re proud of the kids,” Trujillo told me. “They had a good day today in staying off the roadways and exercising their rights.”

And, he pointed out, so many kids from different high schools — people who are rivals — gathered together with a common message. “This shows community right here,” Trujillo said.

That’s what I heard from these teens on Thursday: Las Cruces is a place where all are welcome, and these kids are going to unite to make sure it stays that way.

“I’m here to support our community,” Las Cruces High student Phoenix Perez told me while we were standing outside the fence at Mayfield. “I believe everybody is welcome here.”

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This article has been updated to include Mr. Hall’s name.