![Reaching out. Christopher Lesh, student at Central Catholic High School, serves ice cream during the event on March 2, 2025, at the Portland waterfront. Central Catholic was just one of the schools that sent student volunteers out to cook, prepare, dish, and serve food. Interact club’s co-president Rachel Gerber, junior, plated the food during the event. “I like how direct the contact is,” Gerber said. “You’re there [and] you’re just doing something good. It’s simple, it’s easy, you can feel good about it.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/interact-1-edited-1200x744.jpg)
In the midst of a new presidency and administration that is cracking down on deportation, Ben Miranda, sophomore, chose a poem about immigration to share at the annual Poetry Out Loud event on Jan. 31, 2025.
Poetry Out Loud is an event where sophomore students select a poem and perform it for a crowd of their peers. For some students, the poem they selected was one they could personally relate to.
Miranda’s poem was from a Mexican perspective to highlight the struggles faced by many immigrants. By reading it in the competition, Miranda wanted to spread awareness about the impacts of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Recently, ICE has become a concern, especially for students of color and immigrants.
“We’re about to find out what mass deportation really looks like,” President Trump said in his Trump Administration Campaign.
The poems “Tecolote” by Josue Hernandez Diaz and “Bent to Earth” by Blas Manuel De Luna allowed Miranda to reach his goal of spreading awareness of current ICE concerns, issues, and having the poem relate to his personal experiences. The poems ultimately led to him winning first place at West Linn High School’s Poetry Out Loud contest.
One of the lines from “Bent to the Earth,” which Miranda read, was, “Had seen his father about to lose the one he loved, who had lost some friends who would never return.” While reading, Miranda was able to connect lines like this to his experiences and what others around him have gone through.
“I unfortunately know people who have faced stuff like this,” Miranda said. “So to me, this poem really just is a way to kind of share this with people.”
Miranda wishes to share about other current issues that are affecting immigrants, especially Latinos in the U.S. The chaos of the Los Angeles fires and the Trump administration overlapped in time. The fire allowed the Trump administration to make its way in.
“[Some were] being denied help in the recent Los Angeles fires, and farm workers [were] getting mistreated, especially from ICE,” Miranda said.
In an interview with The Guardian, Angelina Salas, executive director of the non-profit Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, spoke about the effects these kinds of disasters can have on immigrants.
“In the wake of disasters, undocumented immigrants are especially vulnerable, and largely ineligible for federal disaster aid. Many have lost work as well as their homes,” Salas said. “And they are increasingly afraid that seeking help will attract the scrutiny of immigration authorities.”
At the same time ICE raids were happening, Los Angeles was hit by a deadly fire that wiped out many houses and workplaces. Along with this, the fear of being taken away has taken a toll on immigrants. Unfortunately, undocumented immigrants and ethnic minorities are in desperate need of aid, often locally.
According to datause.io, 62.6% of the Woodburn population is Hispanic residents. Even with this knowledge, the Woodburn School Board voted against a “Safe and Welcoming Schools” resolution. This resolution is critical to support students, especially immigrant students, now with a higher fear of ICE raids entering their learning environment.
The original version, Resolution NO. 25-001 emphasizes the wording of ICE needing a “Judicial Order” to enter school grounds and investigate students. The new resolution replaced “Judicial Order” with “Court Order.”
According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, three of the Woodburn School Board’s five members said they worried that a public statement on a contentious issue could put the district in a risky position, which defeated the support of other board members to protect immigrant students and resulted in the resolution not being approved.
The support for ethnic minorities in the region has become an obstacle course, the impacts being seen in schools through policy, but also student action. On March 4, 2025, Woodburn High School students staged a walkout, showing student support for this issue in the face of legislation.
