Shepard Fisher is the Youth Governor of Connecticut and a rising junior at Maloney High School in Meriden, CT.
On June 6, 2025, just days before graduation, a senior from my high school was detained by ICE and sent to Texas. No one told our school. There was not so much as an email or announcement sent to our administrators or city officials. He was just gone. One day he was going to class, planning his future, and the next, his seat at graduation was empty. Thirteen years of work, erased in silence.
People were stunned. For months, we had seen headlines and heard stories about people being taken from their homes with no warning. But whenever we asked questions like “What if this happened here?” or “How do we prepare for this?” The answers were always the same. “That doesn’t happen in places like this,” or “We’re safe, we live in a blue state.” At the time, I wanted to believe them. Now I know just how dangerous this rhetoric is.
What happened next was something unprecedented. My city showed up. Students who had never even attended a protest were suddenly on the sidewalk spearheading them. People made stickers and wore them on their caps and gowns for our graduation ceremony. Teachers and local leaders began advocating and working for the student’s return. There was real outrage. And it wasn’t just from one political side. People across the spectrum, including my city’s republican officials, admitted the detainment was deeply wrong.
But I wasn’t satisfied. A few questions remained on my mind, Why did it take this for us to care? And why aren’t more people doing something before it happens to them?
I stay involved in my community. I go to city council meetings and report to the board of education on behalf of my school. And one thing I’ve learned is that people don’t tend to care about issues unless they feel directly affected. This applies to everything, whether it’s LGBTQ rights or getting sidewalks fixed near schools. Until someone’s daily life is interrupted, most people stay quiet.
That’s especially true for immigration. Before this happened in my school, nobody was protesting. Nobody was passing out stickers. People knew what ICE was doing, but it wasn’t happening to them, so they didn’t act. Unfortunately, people are telling and retelling this story all over the country. Communities are pushing through the pain, only woken up to the true horror of the situation after someone they love gets taken. Except there’s a real problem with this learning via fire. If it happened to everyone, to every town and city, it would be too late.
This is where we are. To the Republicans who are starting to understand that immigrants are vital to your neighborhoods, and to the liberals who think they’re safe because their state votes blue, there will never be a better moment to act. Now, we still have the choice to speak up before the damage becomes permanent.
Madeleine Albright said that democracy is not the default state of human affairs. It has to be built, sustained and defended. She was right. After Trump’s first one hundred days in office, a study by Morgan Treadwell showed how quickly he was able to weaken civil programs and undermine all three branches of government. In some estimates, the road to recovery from the harm done in just his first few months could take upwards of two decades. This is an unprecedented and alarming rate of destruction.
In my community’s case, the repercussions of what took ICE agents just days will echo through our community and stick with my schoolmate for years.
So, to the people who say, “I’m not into politics,” or “I’m doing just fine, why should I care?”, I say this. You don’t have to be into politics to be into loving your neighbor. You may be doing fine now, but that won’t last if the systems around you keep failing. What happens when it’s your coworker? Your best friend? Your child’s classmate? And on a larger level, no matter where you’re from, no matter who you support, when will you defend our constitution and all the privileges, balances, and unity that come with it?
Democracy doesn’t maintain itself. If we want to live in a country that protects all of us, we have to protect each other first.