Pro-immigrant protesters will rally outside. Meanwhile, students feel their voices are going unheard.
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: March 19, 2025
Host: Tomorrow morning, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Homan will appear on New College’s “Socratic Stage”. He will do so together with Chad Wolf, acting Homeland Security Secretary during the first Trump term, and with Governor Ron DeSantis. The three hardliners will discuss immigration. Some New College students are wondering what role they have in this event, if any, and protesters are ready to let their feelings be known. We have the details.
Tom Homan. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Johannes Werner: The protesters are ready. In a press release today, a coalition of local groups including El Pueblo Unido Tampa Bay and The Party of Socialism and Liberation called on supporters to rally as early as 9 a.m. on the sidewalk across the street from New College’s Sainer Auditorium.
The event, originally scheduled for the evening hours, is now set to begin at 11 a.m.
Tom Homan is currently in the news for openly defying a federal judge’s orders to stop the deportation of nearly 300 Venezuelans to prisons in El Salvador. He says the deportees are gang members, and he said on Fox & Friends this Monday he does not care what the judges think.
Junior Salazar, co-founder of El Pueblo Unido, explained why he helped organize the protest.
Junior Salazar.
Junior Salazar: We can talk about the family separation. Now this administration has decided to open up the detention center in Texas again. There’s been a lot that has moved forward with this administration that we’re not in agreement with. We’ve seen where a federal judge has said, “You cannot deport these people based on a law that was enacted long ago and hasn’t been invoked since.” When it was invoked, he still overrode the federal judge and dismissed him. They’re even calling to impeach the judge. There’s so much divisiveness, so much disarray that has been caused by this administration, that I don’t know where we’re headed when it comes to having stability in this country.
JW: Other groups supporting the protest are Voices of Florida, Tampa Activists United, A Better World is Possible Sarasota, and Tampa Bay SDS.
Socratic Stage promotional graphic via www.ncf.edu.
New College students told WSLR News, off the record, about feeling trapped in the middle. One student said she was going to stay away because she felt students have not had, and will not have, a voice in the event. Another student said the three politicians on the stage meant to promote academic discourse all represented the same hard line on immigration, and she felt it would be useless confronting them with questions or comments at the event. She said she considered joining the protest outside but feared being punished by the college administration should anything go awry during the protest. She also said she felt the college administration was supporting the hardline immigration policies represented by Homan, DeSantis and Wolf.
WSLR News shared these student concerns with New College via email by way of the communications department and spokesman Nathan March. We repeatedly urged for feedback but did not hear back before deadline of this report.
Protest organizer Salazar asks demonstrators to stay on the sidewalks, to be vigilant, and to spread the positive message about the contributions of immigrants to the United States of America and Florida.
WSLR News reporter Farah Vallecillo will be reporting from the event tomorrow. Stay tuned.
This has been Johannes Werner, WSLR News.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.