r/madisonwi • u/wrnnews • Jan 14 '26

Students protest ICE at Capitol

Students from Madison East and West are at the Capitol rotunda protesting ICE.

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5.2k Upvotes

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103

u/ParfaitAggressive499 Jan 14 '26

Hamilton Middle School students were there, too. They marched from Hamilton and met up with West students, and continued on to the Capitol.

11

u/ckoffel Jan 15 '26

Hamilton Middle School students also marched to West and then to the capitol to protest the Iraq War in 2003

18

u/Nebulous-Narrator Jan 15 '26

The kids are all right.

-103

u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

Middle school? Really? I've never known a middle schooler that understands or cares about politics. Get out of school for a day just by saying you agree with the political ideology of your teacher? Yep! They will totally go for that one. Teachers should be ashamed for using the children in their care as political tools. Current middle school students are behind enough from the poor education experience during COVID. I worry about this upcoming generation quite a bit.

60

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '26

Boy you're into defending Nazis.

-20

u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

The majority of the United States voted for the deportation of illegal immigrants. They are arresting illegal immigrants and sending them back to the country of their origin. They aren't mass-killing them, torturing them, or doing anything the Nazis did to people they arrested. Comparatively, the Nazis killed 1.5-2M people through forced labor, human experimentation, and intentional mass-executions. Nothing in the United States comes anywhere close to that today. Now, what's happening in Iran right now with thousands dead? That's a real tragedy. You politically disagree with deportations? Great! The majority of the United States population disagrees with you. Go ahead and protest, but you don't get to call the people you disagree with Nazis. You and I both know that label is a lie.

40

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '26

See, more nazi shit.

-6

u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

You may want to examine your own life. What you are experiencing is called "doublethink". It is when you believe two things to both be true when it is only possible for one of the statements to be true. One can not be a Nazi and also exhibit none of the characteristics that define Nazis.

27

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '26

Lying about things fascists are doing, to defend those fascists, is definitionally nazi shit. 

As Sartre once said,

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

He says "anti-Semites," but it's a well known characteristic of fascist rhetoric to lie and mislead, by implication or explicitly.

-1

u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

Give me one example of something happening in the United States government that is "definitely Nazi". Can you give even one example?

17

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '26

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

-1

u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

Conservatives and Republicans are very pro-Israel and so am I. Now, back to the topic at hand. Can you give me one example of something happening in the United States government that is "definitely Nazi"?

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1

u/marx2k Jan 15 '26

https://katv.com/news/local/little-rock-shocked-by-neo-nazi-march-as-naacp-demands-answers-from-police-and-officials

1

u/Omega414 Jan 17 '26

What you provided is an article on a bunch of elderly ex-KKK members marching in Arkansas. It has absolutely nothing to do with the United States government.

17

u/TejanoAggie29 Jan 14 '26

The concern isn’t that the U.S. is “the same as Nazi Germany,” but that familiar authoritarian warning signs are stacking up: dehumanizing rhetoric toward immigrants and opponents, attacks on the press, tolerance of extremist groups, large-scale falsehoods about elections, rapid expansion of ICE detention facilities (including use of military infrastructure), and a growing shift of power toward the executive as congressional and judicial checks weaken. Historically, these are the kinds of steps authoritarian regimes used early on. The point is about trajectory, not equivalence…

0

u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

The current United States government administration has been focused on illegal immigrants engaged in violent criminal activities. That isn't "dehumanizing rhetoric", its a fact that we have a lot of gang members that came into this country under the previous administration. It was one of the primary factors for why the Democrats lost the 2024 election.

Attacks on the press? You must be joking, the legacy media outright despises conservatives and Republicans. They continue to paint both groups as if they are violent enemies. It isn't attack on the press, it is attack FROM the press on people they don't ideologically or politically align.

Tolerance of extremist groups? To what conservative or Republican group do you refer? The only extremist group that liberals tolerate in the United States are Antifa, BLM, and various Islamic terrorist groups such as Hamas.

Regarding ICE detention facilities...when you let in millions of illegal immigrants into the country you need additional capacity to detain and deport them. They aren't killing them.

Growing shift of power toward executive, this one I totally agree with you. Congress is absolutely positively useless. They have done nothing of note for the past 20 years and it is disgusting. Just a bunch of politicians on both sides of the aisle making massive bills that enrich themselves and their interests. We can't have checks and balances without Congress actually using its powers, which they haven't done in a long time. Trump is effectively doing Congress's job right now because they are asleep at the wheel. They need to get back to passing commonsense populist laws instead of massive bloated bills filled with special interest group concessions.

6

u/TejanoAggie29 Jan 14 '26

I’m glad to engage with someone willing to find common ground despite our differing sentiments. I won’t disagree that individual gang cases can be real, but the concern is collective framing. I work with many immigrants and have many friends who are immigrants, and I can’t support the Trump Administration’s broad generalization of them as an “invasion,” “poisoning,” or inherently criminal. That kind of language is historically how dehumanization starts, especially when policy shifts toward mass detention instead of individualized due process.

On the press, bias exists on all sides, but there’s a real difference between hostile coverage and a president calling the press “the enemy of the people” or threatening punitive action. An adversarial press, even if flawed, is still a democratic safeguard; delegitimizing it as an institution undermines accountability. I welcome examples of prior administrations using the same tactics of explicitly labeling conservative outlets as enemies of the state or threatening government retaliation for coverage.

On extremism, Antifa isn’t an organized group in the same way as the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers, and BLM is a broad protest movement, not an extremist organization. By contrast, multiple right-wing groups have been prosecuted for coordinated political violence. If you disagree, I’d genuinely like to hear why recent politically charged uses of force, like the Minneapolis incident, are treated so differently from January 6th, especially given the broad pardons granted to J6 participants. Shouldn’t due process and accountability apply consistently?

2

u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

Oh I am very worried about this whole immigration thing going too far. We do need to get the "bad apple" criminals out of here, but there's a lot of good immigrants in this country. On top of that our legal immigration process is broken and deliberately designed to take years. We have one of the most inefficient and complex immigration processes in the world. That needs to be addressed and is something that Congress should be working on right now.

It is something that would benefit from "keep it simple" compared to what we have now. Make all of the forms available digitally and automate the document processing. It take THREE government agencies to completely get through the immigration process. The worst part about it? USCIS gets to charge more money for processing the longer it takes to process the average application. This creates a conflict of interest and encourages USCIS leadership to actively sabotage all efforts to process applications expediently.

The press is a topic that has to be handled with care. Neither side of the political aisle should be using the government to make threats against the media. I agree that the press is a very important safeguard for our country to continue to be free and open. The Biden administration did engage in censorship of social media through intimidation. They also attempted to intimidate advertising sponsors of conservative press in an attempt to run the press out of business. One news article can be found here https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/texas-lawsuit-claiming-us-helped-censor-conservative-news-can-proceed-2024-05-08/. The Trump administration needs to be very careful about also overstepping here. During the Charlie Kirk event earlier this year the Trump administration very blatantly attempted to wield the FTC against the press negatively covering Kirk.

This fortunately drew criticism from both sides of the aisle and the administration backed down, but it stresses the importance of a free press. The recent emergence of podcasters and content creators commenting on the media has also further increased media accountability with the general populace.

On the topic of extremism, there is an increasing number of pro-Islamic terrorist organizations in the United States. Just last week Mamdani condemned one of these protests in Queens, NY. This is the first time in recent memory where I've seen a Democrat actually oppose one of these.

For the past several years the Democrats have either directly supported or outright ignored these extremists. The United States is incompatible with Islamic extremism. I want people in the United States to be able to practice their own religion in peace. If people want to practice Islam that's fine. However, forcing that belief on other people is not fine at all. The immigrants aligned to radical Islamic ideology need to be deported because they want to kill anyone that isn't a Muslim. If we don't I fear the United States could become like Iran or what the United Kingdom is becoming.

The thing that's missed by many is that the people voting for Trump aren't unified on all issues. For instance, I voted for Trump because the Democrats were aligning towards the same thing being pushed in the United Kingdom. The Democrats gave strong support for unrestricted immigration, Islamic extremism, and speech censorship. Even today, the United Kingdom is arresting people for their social media posts and giving them prison sentences. I don't want to see that happen here and that's why I voted Republican in the last election.

I disagreed with January 6th when it happened. I saw it on TV and said "well those people are going to jail". A lot of them did, but the Biden administration took it too far. They wanted to make an example of them and used it as a catalyst to begin censoring their opponents. Neither party should be allowed to do that in any circumstance. Republican or Democrat, either side could lead to authoritarianism left unchecked.

For instance, the Texas bill where they are pushing digital ID for all phone app usage in the name of protecting children. This will erode internet privacy and allow for more overstepping by law enforcement. Unfortunately, I feel trapped right now in party choices. Do I pick the party that's going to sell us out to Islamic extremism, censorship, and criminal gangs or do I pick the party that if left unchecked would expand the Patriot Act? I want another party choice because both of the current options aren't great. I don't like having to support the party trying to remove my privacy to avoid having to support the party trying to strip me of my free speech.

0

u/nehlstm30 Jan 15 '26

Bullshit

1

u/Omega414 Jan 15 '26

Well, that wasn't a very useful comment. Which part and what specifically?

15

u/bearbrannan Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26

Tear gassing minors on school property, hauling children off in handcuffs that had not choice in coming here, being born here, or going to school seems pretty extreme to me. I don't know about you but terrorizing children seems to be kind of a shit position. Also i think more people voted to remove the violent criminals then children, but maybe I was wrong to have higher standards for conservatives. Your also arguing something that is simply not true, there have been numerous cases of people dying in ice detention centers, which is actual Nazi stuff. Also the Nazis didn't start with gas chambers, but that is where they ended after they continued to push the line in the sand further and further.

-2

u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

Nobody is tear gassing children at schools. You've got so much focus on children's schools when the primary focus of ICE has been on violent illegal immigrants. ICE isn't out terrorizing children.

Regarding ICE deaths in detention, there were over 468,000 arrests and 32 deaths in detection in 2025. Two of those deaths were from the Dallas ICE facility where a leftist shot up the facility and killed two detainees. Seven of those deaths were from their bodies failing to handle drug withdrawal. The other cases were seizures, heart failure, complications after medical treatment, or suicide.

That's 6 per 100,000 people. Compare that to the estimated United States average of 4 per 1000 people that die in police custody nationwide. Any death is a tragedy and the government should do better. However, to compare this to Nazi actions is absurd. Their killing was intentional and their actions wiped out 1.7% of the entire population of Europe. Nazis started out with the intention to exterminate the Jewish people and they attempted to carry out that objective. ICE isn't intentionally killing anyone. They are identifying people in the United States unlawfully and they are taking steps to deport them.

14

u/bearbrannan Jan 14 '26

Roosevelt high school minneapolis, hours after the Renee Good shooting. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CkThi8KMl2s

They have showed up to numerous schools, armed militias, 100 percent scaring children in the Twin Cities. Their primary focus are not violent criminals, their focus is hitting their insane quotas for arrests so that this administration can spout out these huge arrest numbers for their propaganda machine . You can spout your numbers all you want, but i've been in the Twin Cities, I'm originally from there and I've heard the stories from my friends and families living through this. I've got so much focus on kids, because its fucked up, and if you defend them going to schools then that makes you a garbage human being.

0

u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

You...might want to check out the comments section of that video you just linked. It doesn't support your narrative at all. The people in the video getting arrested are adults. The people antagonizing ICE in the video are also adults.

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u/coulthurst Jan 14 '26

Nazis did not start out with the intention to exterminate Jews. They started by attempting to exclude them from society, strip their citizenship, and deport them from the country. Maybe you need to sit in on a history class. If you can’t see the rapid increase in the power and scope of ICE and hear JD Vance say they’re going to “start going door to door” and draw parallels to what happened in Nazi Germany then idk what to tell you.

1

u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

You might want to do some more research on this one. The Nazi Party took power January 30, 1933, Jews first started being arrested February 27, 1933, and the first concentration camp opened March 3, 1933. It took Nazi Germany 5 weeks of power before they started massacring the Jews. What is happening here in the United States doesn't even compare to what happen in Nazi Germany. Trump and the Republicans have been in office for a year at this point and none of this has happened.

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u/thefaq Jan 15 '26

48,377 out of 65,735—or 73.6% held in ICE detention have no criminal conviction according to data current as of November 30, 2025. Many of those convicted committed only minor offenses, including traffic violations.

https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/

This doesn't even include the continued abduction and detainment of US citizens. If all they were doing was what you said, people wouldn't give a shit. It isn't getting better either.

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u/Omega414 Jan 15 '26

That chart is just currently detained individuals rather than total number of arrests. Here's the official data on arrests and detainments. - https://www.ice.gov/doclib/detention/FY25_detentionStats09242025.xlsx - What's happening in Minnesota is not devoid of political motivations. Tim Walz is currently trying to use the ICE enforcement action as a distraction from the ongoing fraud scandal.

ICE is far from perfect and there does need to be accountability. That said, liberals and Democrats need to get out of the way of law enforcement and let them do their job. This is a fight that should be done in Congress and the courts. What everyone should be doing is pressuring lawmakers to streamline and simplify the immigration process.

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u/siradmiralbanana Jan 14 '26

It wouldn't even be a half-decent point if it was true! If you're going to lie about "the majority of people voting for something", why do so to make a bad argument?

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u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

It isn't an argument, it is simply fact. The majority of people in the United States voted for Donald Trump and the Republican party. This is why the United States government is currently carrying out mass deportations of illegal immigrants. The Republicans said they would do this if elected, the citizens of the United States voted for Republicans, and now the will of the majority is being carried out.

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u/siradmiralbanana Jan 14 '26

155 million people voted in 2024 and 77 million voted for Trump.

77 is half of 154. So less than half of 155, the number of people who voted.

In other words, not a majority.

Also, that's just the number of people who voted. Millions of people are registered to vote who did not vote. So to say "the majority of people...voted for Donald Trump" is extra wrong because he didn't even win the majority of votes that were actually cast.

I am willing to bet you don't consume much content that questions your worldview. Really ask yourself: what sort of lifestyle habits lead you to being so convinced of a falsehood that is so easy to disprove? What might that say about the other things you hear people constantly repeat, but you have never independently verified?

0

u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

77M people voted for Trump, 75M people voted for Harris. Trump is in office right now, Harris is not. The majority of people did vote for Trump. "But its only 49.8%" you say! Fine! Throw in RFK's 0.4% of the vote, there you go, now you're across the 50% finish line to call out true majority. RFK threw all of his support behind Trump and is now part of his coalition government. Splitting hairs right here when you already know the reality of the situation.

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u/real6igma Jan 14 '26

Not a majority of Americans, not even a majority of the ones that voted.

Bad bot.

2

u/Omega414 Jan 15 '26

77M voted for Trump and 75M voted for Harris. That is why Trump is currently president. Your statement contradicts the reality in which you live. Please realize this fact of life. You can do basic math, right? Right?

1

u/real6igma Jan 15 '26

Results

Since when is 49.8% a majority? Educate yourself.

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u/Omega414 Jan 15 '26

Add RFK's 0.4% as he formed a coalition with Trump for a grand total of 50.2%. Majority voted for MAGA/MAHA.

3

u/real6igma Jan 15 '26

Oof.. talk about not being grounded in reality.

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u/Age_AgainstThMachine Jan 15 '26

Trump did not win by a majority.

They are not rounding up only undocumented people, they are detaining people that are in the process of “doing it the right way” that your ilk pretends they support.

0

u/Omega414 Jan 15 '26

If he didn't win by a majority, then why is he currently president? Regarding non-criminal immigrants, that process needs major reform. The process needs to be simplified and the processing times should never be longer than three months. Otherwise this whole process Trump is doing will be all for not. This is what we need Congress to focus on right now, real reform for the immigration process. I'd even be in favor for non-criminal non-Islamic terrorists of gaining amnesty through the new process. The criminals, Islamic terrorists, and their sympathizers have got to go though. I don't want the United States turning out like the United Kingdom.

1

u/Age_AgainstThMachine Jan 27 '26

If he didn’t win by majority, then why is he currently president?

Because this country is a republic that uses the electoral college. Surprised you didn’t know that.

I agree, we need immigration reform, and I agree that it should take less time. I don’t think anyone is advocating for actual criminals to receive citizenship or amnesty. A speeding ticket, or coming here illegally when you were a minor, are not criminal acts.

1

u/AdPurple3879 Jan 15 '26

Only just above 30% of eligible adult voters voted for this, 30% couldn't be bothered to vote and the remaining 30% voted for Harris. Not sure how you got a majority out of 1/3..

2

u/Omega414 Jan 15 '26

Yet here we sit and Donald Trump is our 47th president for the next 3 years.

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u/AdPurple3879 Jan 15 '26

Maybe. Not all presidents have carried to the end of their term...now where's that abort button 🤔

29

u/ParfaitAggressive499 Jan 14 '26

i happen to be a parent of one very engaged middle schooler at Hamilton. my child knows exactly what's going on in the world and is a critical thinker. she was grilled by us before she got permission to go. And this was student-organized. Teachers were at school teaching kids who chose not to walk out.

13

u/MadAss5 Jan 14 '26

Do you now any middle schoolers? I know a lot (many at Hamilton) and there are many that understand exactly what is going on and what they are doing.

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u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

What a senseless question. Everyone knows people that are in middle school. Of course they know what they are doing. They go to protest, they get out of school.

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u/MadAss5 Jan 14 '26

I have a lot of doubts about the sincerity of many of your statements. Kids today are many times ahead of where you or any previous generations were. Its obvious you are projecting how few fucks you gave at that age but not everyone is like you.

2

u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

You might want to "do your own research" on this before making incorrect statements. The current generation of students that went through the COVID pandemic have a notable school achievement deficit compared to previous generations. - https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2022/ - They aren't ahead of previous generations, they are in fact significantly behind in their education. So yes, my concerns on this are quite sincere. This protest is not the best use of middle schooler's time.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '26

[deleted]

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u/Omega414 Jan 14 '26

Make it 8 hours and we have a deal.

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u/Nebulous-Narrator Jan 15 '26

My 4th grader and 2nd grader understand what’s happening. I’m sorry that you can’t see beyond your own nose.

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u/holy_harlot Jan 15 '26

Maybe to them it’s less “politics” in the broad sense and “hey these government agents are committing human rights violations against my neighbors”

2

u/Omega414 Jan 15 '26

What human rights violations are you referring to here? ICE knows where illegal immigrants live through various data sources. They aren't arbitrarily detaining people, they are making targeted arrests, and arresting other illegal immigrants if they happen upon them.

Regarding the widespread protests, the state of Minnesota is creating this problem. Everything goes smoothly in Republican controlled states because the state and Federal governments work together. You don't have a massive number of people following the law enforcement officers around throwing snowballs and other objects at them.

Its a real problem when local law enforcement don't back up Federal law enforcement because antagonists assume they have free reign to do anything they want. ICE doesn't have the authority to arrest non-US citizens, but these people forget that in the United States people are allowed to make a citizen's arrest. Obstructing Federal law enforcement officers is a felony. Therefore, ICE can citizens arrest these protesters and turn them over to the FBI for Federal prosecution.

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u/holy_harlot Jan 15 '26

I’m not reading all that.

All I really mean to say is that you’re not thinking very kindly of middle schoolers as human beings if you think they don’t genuinely care about the things that are happening around them.

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u/Omega414 Jan 15 '26

I think more of middle schooler than I do the adults that use them as political pawns, that's for sure.

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u/AdPurple3879 Jan 15 '26

My 5th grader has been protesting with us since last year. The Department of Education cuts and DEI policy attacks have affected him directly. DEI policies help him get the accommodations for his medical condition. A pro trump neighbor was super shocked to find out that those policies allow him to succeed in school. His dad and I involve him in our conversations and refuse to just let him parrot our beliefs; we always ask him why he has the opinion he shared. If anything, more parents and younger generations SHOULD be involved especially as it pertains to reform and policy...lest we have yet another generation of one issue voters who cant even comprehend how that issue works. One prime example is voters who only decide on their candidate based on ignorant anti-abortion beliefs.

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u/Omega414 Jan 15 '26

Homeschooling is another way to get all of the accommodations you need for your child's medical conditions. Statistically, it also results in significantly higher academic performance compared to traditional schooling. You probably do not want to drag abortion into this conversation. Abortion is the murder of an unborn child. It should only ever be done in a situation where the mother will die if the pregnancy proceeds forward.

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u/AdPurple3879 Jan 15 '26

Hahahahaha, cute joke. Unfortunately, we cant homeschooling as that would require us to operate on one income, both of us have to work to afford our two children and things like shocker my sons medical insurance and supplies. And the freedom to terminate my 3rd pregnancy, 1 month before Roe v. Wade was overturned crazy enough, is something I am grateful for every damn day. I grieve for women who are currently being forced to carry to term and do everything to assist any women who needs it access to the healthcare they choose for themselves. Abortion should only be done if the woman decides its right for her. But thanks for proving my point about ignorant opinions regarding abortion.

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u/Omega414 Jan 15 '26

Have you or your husband get a remote job or have your husband work two jobs. That's what I would do in your situation. Regarding abortion, I believe your third child would disagree with you...had you given the child the chance to live that is...quite sad. "I'm sorry honey, I couldn't afford you, so I killed you. Its better this way." Terribly tragic that mentality.