Diablo Valley College got a taste of political activism on Tuesday, March 11 as a half-dozen students gathered at the Commons to protest the rising dictatorship and government crackdown on pro-Palestinian solidarity at American universities.

Twenty-one-year-old biology major Cameron Kuehn said she organized the demonstration primarily to raise awareness about the arrest and pending deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident and Columbia graduate student who helped organize pro-Palestinian protests at his university.

“If a legal [resident] is being arrested for enacting the right to protest, then none of us are safe from that,” Kuehn said. “Where does it stop? It’s not going to stop.”

The previous day, March 10, Trump declared his intentions to systematically arrest and deport Palestinian immigrants involved in anti-Israel activism on university campuses

In the weeks since, ICE has apprehended more international students who stood in solidarity with Palestine, including Columbia scholar and Palestinian advocate Leqaa Kordia, who has allegedly overstayed her visa since 2022, and Georgetown University post-doctoral fellow Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national who saw his student visa revoked by the ICE.

“Trump has all this power now and he’s going to use it to silence people that he doesn’t agree with, [to] silence people that are trying to bring light to the issues that he is creating and he is enabling,” Kuehn said. 

The DVC protesters also expressed their general discontent with the actions of the second Trump administration, including the massive cuts to federal employment, the severance of federal funding for medical and scientific research, and the chaotic inundation of executive orders that Kuehn said “will spell out disaster for all of us in the near and distant future.”

“We just want to get out here and say we’re not taking that s–– anymore,” Kuehn added. “We are not going to let a fascist take over our country and try to take away our most fundamental rights, our right to protest, our right to free speech and assembly.”

The demonstration began with Kuehn and her friend Vic Flores, 20, gathering at the Commons at 12pm with a handful of cardboard and paper signs bearing messages like, “Protect our right to protest,” and “Release Mahmoud.”

Kuehn stressed the importance of taking immediate action and raising awareness, even if only on a small scale.

“I feel like if people know about that, people are going to be angry, they’re going to be motivated to act and fight against what is happening in our country right now.” Kuehn said.

“If we show our government that we don’t care about our rights, they’re not gonna let us have them, so we can’t take them for granted,” she added.

In the first three hours of the protest, the demonstrators interacted with an estimated 10 to 12 people who stopped to ask about their signs, and a few joined their ranks until they grew from two to six. 

Taking a walk on his break from tutoring at the Arts, Communication, and Language Center, Thomas Simbulan, 21, recognized some of the protesters, stopped to ask questions and decided to join.

“It’s a thing that all of us are reckoning with, because a lot of us are coming up in a time where we’re more politically [sentient] about these things,” he said. “We’re watching the news and a lot of us are being increasingly fed up with the lack of accountability and the lack of people taking action.”

“I think a lot of people of this generation are in a sort of fight or flight instinct,” Simbulan said. “We’re [at] a decision point right now. If we’re not going to act on something now, that becomes harder months from now or even years from now.”

Members of the group said they’ve individually attended local protests as of late, but when it came to organizing one, they didn’t know exactly where to begin. Prior to the demonstration, Kuehn shared her plans on her personal social media account, but it gained little traction.

“In many ways it’s a new experience for us, and this is sort of a very ramshackle coalition that’s here right now,” Simbulan said. “I think all of us are … kind of learning about activism in real time. We’re just kind of baby-stepping our process into this and, through that, stratifying our own thoughts and having the competence to say something about it.”

As for future plans of on-campus activism, organizer Kuehn laughingly said she had “concepts of a plan” for a student walk-out or teach-in for climate justice, adding that the technicalities of coordination were still rocky.

The demonstrators said they’d encourage more students to engage in political activism, whether by simply staying informed about current events or boycotting companies that support the Trump administration.

“If you see something that’s wrong with your country, and you want to stand up [against] it, grab a sign and get going,” Kuehn said. “People will join you.”

“It’s scary and it’s awkward and it’s nerve-wracking, but at the end of the day, it’s worth it because we’re fighting for what we believe and we will not let things stop us from that.”