UNT Democrats’ anti-ICE rally met with counter-protests from Young Conservatives of Texas

DENTON — The University of North Texas Democrats group arranged a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at UNT campus on Wednesday in front of the library mall, which was counter-protested by the Young Conservatives of Texas group. (YCT)

Several students from across the campus attended the protest to voice their concerns about treatment of immigrants in the country. While the number of protestors protesting against ICE was higher, there were pro-ICE protestors at the event as well.

The protestors from both sides engaged in heated arguments with each other and had to be separated by the Dean of Students Maureen McGuinness multiple times, who was present at the event to make sure the protest is held peacefully.

Due to the heated nature of the protest, several police officers were also deployed at the location to make sure the event goes through smoothly.

Ule Trejo is part of the UNT democrats and one of the speakers at the protest who called for abolishment of ICE. Trejo believes her message was well received.

“People wanted to go interact with them and argue with them (YCT) but that wasn’t point of our protest,” Trejo said. “Our plan was to spread this information and raise awareness.”

Trejo also said the YCT threatened to call ICE on their protest, which was denied by Kelly Neidert, Chairman of the YCT.

Neidert said the YCT were looking for more “activism events” to do and thought this was a perfect opportunity for them to hold one since they did not agree with the anti-ICE protests that were being held.

“We saw that the college democrats were having a protest to keep ICE of the campus, abolish ICE, all that sort of stuff,” Neidert said. “That is something our group doesn’t agree with so we decided to counter-protest.”

Both groups engaged in heated arguments on social media before the protest and continue to do so after the protest as well.