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Among the speakers was recent UO graduate Prissila Moreno, who drew a reprimand last month from the chair of the school's board of trustees for political remarks she made during her graduation speech.
About 100 people gathered outside of the Eugene Federal Building on Saturday, July 18, to protest the most recent fatal encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and mourn the deaths of two men killed by officers this month.
Attendees assembled about 1 p.m. to honor Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero.
Salgado Araujo was a 52-year-old Mexican national who lived in the U.S. for 35 years and was shot and killed by ICE in Houston on July 7. Durán Guerrero was a Colombian national working legally in the U.S., who was shot and killed by ICE a week later in Biddeford, Maine.
The protest was part of a national response organized locally by the Party for Socialism and Liberation Eugene, an activist organization that regularly leads protests, rallies and community organizing campaigns in the Eugene-Springfield area.
Earlier this week, on Wednesday, protesters held a vigil for the two men at the federal building.
J.P. Lempke, 32, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, known as PSL, has been involved with unions and local activism groups since he moved to Eugene in 2018.
“We here at the PSL are massively protesting the recent ICE killings that we have seen going on in this country,” he said. “With Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero most prominently, but of course, there have been many people who have died recently at the hands of ICE. Both directly, in street-execution-style incidents, as well as dozens of people who have died in ICE detention.”
Since ICE set up a homebase at the Eugene Federal Building when deportation operations ramped up last June, the building has become the primary focal point for local activism.
In late April, the federal government erected a fence outside the building, in response to protests at the facility of President Donald Trump’s policies. After weeks of legal deliberation, a federal judge ordered the fence to be removed, allowing protests in the courtyard again.
Lempke said the removal of the fence restores the community’s right to protest: “It allows us some freedom of movement around here to be able to actually exercise our First Amendment right to protest.”
The protest kicked off with chants by the organizers, who held a banner that read, “The people united will defend immigrant families.”
That was followed by five speeches by members of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, the Student Government Association at the University of Oregon, and Lane County Immigrant Defense Network.
One of the speakers was Prissila Moreno, 22, who recently made headlines after she made pro-Palestinian and anti-ICE comments during her University of Oregon commencement speech on June 15.
UO Board of Trustees Chair Steve Holwerda reprimanded Moreno during a board meeting in June, stating that the comments were “immature” and “lacked judgment.”
Nevertheless, Moreno spoke again Saturday at the federal building, after her last speech in front of 40,000 people at Autzen Stadium.
“I have been involved in some community organizing, but I think now that I’ve graduated the University of Oregon, it’s something that I want to get into a lot more. And I think that it was a really good opportunity to get before the broader Eugene community,” she said.
For Moreno, keeping the conversation going is what drives activism.
“I think at the core of my hope is that people don’t stop talking about what’s happening right now. To see solidarity today and across all the rallies I’ve been to is really special to me and it gives me hope,” she said. “I come here to be filled with hope and also to be a part of not staying silent, because I think silence will not protect you.”
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