Teachers joined hundreds of Portland students from several schools outside City Hall on Wednesday to protest the actions of immigration agents.
The gathering comes after two students were detained with the rest of their family at the Canadian border and transferred to a detention facility in Texas.
The students, 16-year-old Joel Andre and 14-year-old Estefania Andre, attended Deering and Casco Bay High Schools. The family is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and had been denied asylum in the U.S.
Speakers at City Hall Wednesday criticized the actions of ICE agents in Portland and around the country, while signs were held calling for ICE to be abolished.
“I also want to remind everyone that hateful speech that creates an environment of harassment and discrimination will not be tolerated in our schools or offices,” said Scallon in his letter.
Trump recently referred to Somalia as a ‘hellhole” and said Somali immigrants are destroying the U.S.
Read Superintendent Scallon’s letter here.
