I’m writing this because I want to see more teenagers at the No Kings protest on March 28. We should be at these protests because we are all affected by what the Trump administration and Congress have been doing, whether you know it yet or not.
Countless masked Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been sent into American cities to capture people. Legislation that would deprive millions of voters of their right to participate in free and fair elections is at stake, as is the rollback of climate change policies. Along with the Israeli prime minister, the executive branch has started a war with Iran, and that was following the clandestine kidnapping of the president of Venezuela. And the release of the Epstein files has not complied with the law’s timeline, an assumed effort to protect the president. All of these examples affect teenagers in some way.
Trump won’t be the last person to threaten our safety and freedom, but he is that to us now. I know I’m not the only teenager who cares about those fundamental rights. But when I go to protests or meetings, I rarely see other teenagers there. This worries me.
While the high school walkouts were great, we need more teenagers to keep going to protests and to find a way to stay involved. It’s important for young people to do so, so we can learn from experienced organizers. We’re going to inherit this world, and we will need to know how to build successful movements.
We know that more than 30 people died while in ICE custody in 2025 alone. In January of 2026, two Minnesotans were shot and killed by ICE. This was murder and sanctioned by the state after the fact. This massive ICE overreach and abuse of power needs to stop, and we have to make it very clear to our government that we will not stand for it.
In a healthy society, everyone should feel safe leaving their house, and ICE is making this impossible by tearing families apart. We have friends and classmates who have to worry that their parents will be taken away and they won’t see them or know where they are for months, years or if they have been shipped thousands of miles to another country. No kid should have to worry about that.
At the very least, we need ICE to step way back and follow the law. In the beginning, Trump said that hard criminals would be targeted. In reality, the reach has become much more expansive. How long will it be before everyone who criticizes Trump is targeted? The protesters in Minnesota understood the threat and showed us how to respond.
Trump is pushing legislation that would make it much more difficult for anyone who isn’t a cis man to vote. The SAVE America Act double’s down on the SAVE act, which already passed the House. It’s important that everyone has access to vote for democracy to function. We believe that Trump doesn’t want everybody to be able to vote. This is one thing we are protesting at No Kings.
We’re the ones who are going to have to lead the fight against climate change, because we’re the ones who are going to have to deal with it for the rest of our lives. I don’t want to have to start adulthood in the broken remains of what used to be the US, with coastal cities underwater and the other half burned to a crisp. We all remember the Lake Christine Fire. It will take another 10 years or more for Basalt Mountain to recover, and by then there will likely have been many more fires. It’s more than possible that we’ll see ski resorts close due to the lack of snow in our lifetimes.
In Iran, the US literally bombed an elementary school that reportedly killed over 175 people, most of them children. Hundreds more were wounded. Here, the war has caused gas prices to go up 80 cents in the last month.
If these issues matter to you, it’s time to speak up and do something. It’s our future at stake. I encourage everyone, but especially teenagers, to attend No Kings this Saturday, March 28, from 1 to 3pm, starting with a march on Grand Avenue then gathering in Sayre Park for a rally at 2pm. If you want to get more involved, talk to people at the information tables. I hope to see you at No Kings!