Demonstrators decry deportations

More than 100 demonstrators returned to the island’s main four-way stop April 19, reprising the well-attended April 5 “Hands Off!” protest.

This time, their protests concerned the escalating deporting of student protestors, legal U.S. residents and others under President Donald Trump’s administration. Protestors marched up Vashon Highway and took to its intersection with Bank Road, holding signs with the names and faces of people targeted by the Trump administration, including Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez, Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk — some of those signs accompanied with the words: “Are you next?”

Abrego Garcia was deported to his home country of El Salvador by mistake on March 15 in what the Trump administration called an “administrative error.” He is legally protected by a 2019 court order that specifically blocks him from being sent back to El Salvador, as he fled the country to escape gang violence.

Other Trump deportations — attempted and successful — have also provoked criticism and legal challenges.

Islander Joe Okimoto, who at three years old was among the nearly 125,000 people of Japanese ancestry forcibly removed from home and incarcerated in camps around the Western U.S., held a sign drawing a direct comparison between then and now.

“I feel like what is happening today is very much like what happened to my family, so I have to speak out,” Okimoto said. “They’re just taking people off the street. … I think it’s ethnic cleansing, what is happening. And we have to stop it. … I think it’s going to come down to the people rising up and protesting to stop what Trump and his allies are doing.”

Islander Joe Okimoto holds a sign at the April 19 protest. (Alex Bruell photo)

Islander Michael Butz said the constant stream of “frustrating, anxiety provoking” news from the administration led him to want to get involved. He held a sign that read “First they came for Kilmar — Then they came for us” referencing the famous Martin Niemöller poem about the complicity in Germany that facilitated the rise to power of the Nazis.

“I felt it would be healthy to come out here and do something,” he said. “It’s easy to feel powerless … but doing something is better than nothing.”

Island artist Matt Beursken, wearing a colorful outfit criticizing Trump and Elon Musk, pointed to creative expression as a vehicle for protest. “A hand made, colorful sign gets noticed,” he said.

”We’re a community … and we all feel the same pain of having our rights slowly taken away from us,” said island photographer Kent Phelan. “I think ordinary citizens are now doing the work that Congress ought to be doing.”