A solidarity march for immigrants and LGBTQ community in Rockford on Sunday spurred folks to share their experience since Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Ari Perez, a Rockford resident and activist, said “This is letting every local official know, every elected official know that Rockford is a mainstay in the struggle of all oppressed people, and it is our social responsibility to protect the most vulnerable of our society right now -- our Latino people, our trans people.”
Among the parents, residents, and community leaders who addressed the crowd at midpoint during the march was high school student Antonio, 17, of Machesney Park, IL.
“I go to a school where I am discriminated against for my color and why? Because I look like this. I am still an American, and I do not deserve this treatment.
My grandfather came here. He worked hard. He raised my mother to be a strong and independent woman, and I do not deserve the discrimination. I will still wave my flag. I stand strong for Mexico. I stand strong for Salvador, but I am still a god damn American.”
About 200 people marched through downtown Rockford. Some participants carried signs that read “No one is illegal on stolen land,” “My students are not criminals,” and “Families belong together.”
Marie Figueroa, a dual language teacher at Belvidere School District, also addressed the crowd.
She said it’s been challenging to protect her Latino students who are scared for their family's safety under President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan.
“My job is to make my students feel welcome, protected, safe, and not have worries. How are they supposed to learn if they are afraid that when they come home, someone from the family member might be gone or the whole house?
“Right around when Trump got inaugurated and everything, I had a student who didn't come to school for almost a whole week. My heart dropped every single morning that I did not see her, and I felt my heart was just shattered. It was very hard to teach every day not knowing if I'd see her again. And it just crushed me that this is the reality that we're living in right now, and this should not be how it should be.”
Several speakers referred to the suicide of an 11-year-old Texas girl Jocelynn Rojo Carranza earlier this month, after reportedly being bullied at school for her family’s immigration status.
Bruna Sollod, political director of national immigrant rights group United We Dream, in a statement tied Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric to the child’s death:
“Trump and his MAGA allies’ are directly responsible for this preventable tragedy. They continue to normalize hate, and minimize the consequences of terrorizing immigrants, kidnapping them from their homes and unleashing the military against communities across the country.”
A blitz of ICE raids in the Chicagoland area during the first few weeks of Trump’s inauguration spurred fear in the immigrant community. Immigrant rights activists tell WNIJ the efforts may have quieted down since then but are expected to ramp up if Congress approves funding for the execution of Trump’s mass deportation plan.
