Paige Engberg isn’t new to protesting. She attended several on-campus protests and was at Tampa City Hall on Presidents’ Day — but she wasn’t prepared for the turnout at a demonstration last weekend.
Engberg was one of thousands of activists who protested outside Tampa City Hall on Saturday against the Trump administration’s recent actions.
Engberg said she attended because the U.S. “does not look like” the country she grew up in anymore.
“It’s not the administration that I personally want for myself or anyone or my children to grow up in,” Engberg said.
The protest revolved around the mass layoff of federal employees and cuts to federal funding of social programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans Affairs.
This demonstration was also part of the 50501 Movement, where organizers held 50 protests in 50 states in one day.
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Engberg said Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest drew her attention to the administration’s deportation campaign “against international students and professors.”
Khalil was a negotiator during Columbia University’s protests for the university to “cut financial ties to Israel” and is currently in an immigration detention center in Louisiana.
“That one specifically really stood out to me because it was terrifying,” Engberg said. “As a student that participates in pro-Palestinian protests on campus… I was doing the same things that that student was doing, again, at that university, and he got persecuted.”
Tampa Activists United lead organizer Nicole Morgan said the group had 1,500 sign-ups for the protest—but she was surprised when even more people showed up.
“The turnout of this protest has honestly been really crazy,” Morgan said. “We were up, down, like three blocks, covered both sides. So, yeah, it was packed.”
The protest drew community members from across the Tampa Bay Area and some activists who were in town for the NCAA Women’s Final Four.
Protesters varied widely from parents with babies in strollers to older people sitting on ledges in the midday heat.
But the USF community made up a fraction of the crowd.
Vicky Tong, a USF psychology alumna who graduated in December, chanted against the Trump administration’s “attacks on students.”
Tong, a member of Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society, said she protested on behalf of Joseph Charry, a former USF student who had his visa revoked and left the country to avoid deportation.
Charry was suspended from USF after participating in on-campus protests in April that urged USF to divest from companies that financially support Israel, according to an Oracle article.
Related: What reporters at USF say about the Trump administration’s pressure on the press
Saba Indawala is a USF sociology major who was temporarily suspended after an on-campus protest in October. She protested with Tong in support of Charry.
Indawala said SDS helped promote Saturday’s protest by putting up physical flyers around campus and Tampa, and posting about it on social media.
“I think nowadays a lot of people are looking on social media for information about rallies and also politics,” Indawala said.
Bella Murray is a high school senior who wants to study medicine at USF. She protested against attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government agencies and cuts to the Department of Education’s staff and funding.
“I’m scared that I will not be able to get a good and proper education without things like critical race theory, without things that are for people with disabilities, especially because…I want to go into women’s healthcare,” Murray said.
Murray said with the Department of Education “lacking DEI,” she fears she won’t be able to give people the healthcare they deserve.
Related: USF researchers face uncertainty over NIH grant reductions
The 50501 Movement’s next day of action is scheduled for April 19, though a protest hasn’t been scheduled in Tampa at the time of publication
Morgan urged those who want to protest to “reach out to your local organizations or start your own.”
“I only started a couple months ago,” Morgan said. “I was just one person and another girl and it’s built up to this, which is honestly really amazing.”
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