On Nov. 13, around 30 students, calling themselves the Youth Brigades, blocked pedestrian traffic at Goucher College in Baltimore in an action calling attention to the militarized border between the United States and Mexico. The students, members of student group El Fusil and the Baltimore branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, erected a makeshift fence resembling the border along the only walkway connecting the dormitories to the academic buildings.
When students approached the wall, they were asked for a valid U.S. passport. If a valid passport could not be produced, they were denied entrance, and redirected elsewhere. Campus security, comprised primarily of people of color, was sympathetic to the action and allowed the wall to stand throughout the morning.
About 20 students attached themselves to the fence, while five distributed literature on the ruling class’s assault on immigrants. The remaining students posed as border patrol agents.
When students expressed their frustration with the obstruction, they were encouraged to compare this five-minute disruption in their collegiate life to the perils that Latin American immigrants face when crossing the border to find employment to feed their families.
Students were informed that undocumented workers have no rights to healthcare or workplace protections in the United States.
While “free trade” agreements grant U.S. corporations unrestrained access to cross the continent’s borders in search of cheap labor and new markets, labor is criminalized for crossing those same borders. Once inside the United States, immigrant workers are overworked, underpaid and threatened with deportation the moment they demand a greater portion of the wealth they produce.
An overwhelming amount of students were sympathetic to the demonstration, and calls of “Si se peude” were heard sporadically throughout the day.
