By Esteban Fernandez
Times West Virginian
CHARLESTON — For her social studies project, Pleasant Valley Elementary fourth grader Abrien Quinn chose to travel to the state’s capitol to witness her first protest.
“I learned a few things,” she said. “Honestly, more people came to the protest than I was expecting. And I learned that a lot more people than you think, actually do care.”
However, Abrien’s father, Dillon Quinn, saw something new from the state’s opposition leaders. The state’s Democratic leadership had fewer reservations calling what the Trump administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are doing, as fascist.
“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” House minority leader Mike Pushkin said.
United West Virginia, in collaboration with a Women’s Free America Walkout March, held a protest at the state capitol on Tuesday. It was part of a larger nationwide protest movement which staged called on participants to walkout from work and school. Between 70 to 80 people participated, all expressing concern over the turn the country has taken since the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross, as well as the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the social safety net.
Pushkin expressed concern over House Bill 4433, which imposes social exile on undocumented immigrants and makes it a felony to give them any kind of support, such as a ride to a doctor’s office. Pushkin called it the Anne Frank bill.
The Department of Homeland Security used a song popularized in neo-Nazi spaces on a video for ICE recruitment.
“There was a famous picture of Ruby Bridges, the first little Black girl to integrate the school in Little Rock,” Pushkin said. “The angry faces surrounding this little girl, screaming at her. I wonder how those people feel to be on the wrong side of history. Well, we’re on the right side of history out here. It’s time to keep doing stuff like this, keep fighting back, keep speaking up, because what they’re doing is incredibly wrong.”
Pushkin excoriated his Republican colleagues in the Legislature, urging the only way to change how things are unfolding is to run Democratic candidates for office. He said he’s seen a large surge in the amount of candidates filing for office runs later this year.
Brit Aguirre, who is running for a seat in U.S. Congressional District 1, warned that West Virginia wasn’t exempt from the overreach of the Trump administration. She said Gov. Patrick Morrisey was politically motivated to align with the Trump administration out of a desire to win reelection with Trump’s base. She said the Constitution still guarantees the right to protest and peacefully assemble, a right that if not exercised, may soon be lost.
“We have to keep organizing,” she said. “It’s not just protesting, we have to organize. So, all the folks who gathered together plan this, organize, organize, organize. From there, we can work together to take down this regime.”
Abrien Quinn is still too young to appreciate the period of history she’s living through. She wasn’t sure if she understood the historic significance of the events unfolding in the ninth year of her life. Her father said it was great to see Democratic leaders step out of their comfort zones to speak out against the actions of the Trump administration and ICE. But what the future holds for his daughter remains uncertain.
“I’m watching the social safety nets disappear,” he said. “The ones that keep her healthy for her type 1 diabetes.”
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