Volume 126, No. 84 Thursday, February 9, 2017 NEWS
Students feel effects of ban PAGE 4
Alex Marquez holds his “I Belong Here” sign as he stands in front of College Republicans at CSU’s ‘Free Speech Wall’ covered in messages from students. This event was hosted by Fort Collins for Progress on the plaza.` PHOTO BY DAVIS BONNER COLLEGIAN
Students rally to support immigrants, CSU Republicans respond with wall By Stuart Smith @notstuartsmith
While Dreamers United hosted an event on the Plaza in support of immigrants Wednesday afternoon, Colorado State University Republicans built another wall. Two demonstrations took place from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. in response to the travel ban enacted via executive order by President Donald Trump. Dreamers United, a student group in support for undocumented students, was there for a campaign of their’s to send letters and care packages to Casa de Paz in Aurora, Colorado. The second group, the College Republicans at CSU, were there in a counter demonstration, building a Free Speech Wall similar to the one they did in October. Anarely Marquez, the social media director of Dreamers
United, explained the event. “We partnered up with (forward.us) and we’re doing a letter-writing campaign called “To Immigrants With Love,” she said. “It’s not a rally, it’s not anything like that, it’s just a place for people to come and write postcards to immigrants expressing their support and love.” Marquez was also pleased with the turnout of the event. “On our Facebook page, we had about 1,000 people that were interested, and so far, we’ve definitely had a lot of people come,” she said. “It’s not a rally, so people just come and go in waves, but I’m really happy with the turnout.” Many of the attendees stood around the booth and held up signs in support of immigrants. One woman, Colleen Fullbright, held a sign that was written in three different languages. “If you’re my neighbor, I
don’t care where you’re from. We need to learn a little more empathy and put ourselves in the shoes of our neighbors,” she said. “I see immigrants. I see their hard work, I see them doing the best for their kids, and I see their fear. I see them having people exploit them in housing and employment.” Soon after people began to gather around the Dreamers United event, college Republicans appeared on the Plaza and began to build a wall made out of cardboard boxes. According to College Republican President Sara Andreas, the wall was meant as a way to demonstrate their free speech rights. “(We) are hosting a Free Speech wall, which is meant to be a visual representation of a celebration of our First Amendment rights,” Andreas said. She also explained why they
chose that day, as opposed to any other, to build the wall. “Other CSU students are expressing their rights all the time. We have CSU students that are going down to march in Denver for different activities, so we picked a day when people were already going to be expressing their First Amendment right on the plaza to come here and create an inclusive space to do the same thing.” Andreas acknowledged that choosing to build the wall was controversial, but said it was not meant to incite anger, instead acting as a “conversation-starter.” She also said that building another wall in the future is not out of the question, saying that they had a much better response this time than the first time. When the first Free Speech wall was built in October, many students were agitated and see SUPPORT on page 8 >>
OPINION
Opposing views: immigration PAGE 9
A&C
New exhibit combats racism PAGE 11