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BENICIA – An estimated 400 students from Benicia High School walked out of class on Wednesday afternoon to protest the Trump Administration and the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Benicia High walkout was organized by junior Maddie Vlnar. She had never attended a protest before, much less organized one. But she had friends from the East Bay who had organized a walkout, and a handful of Benicia High students said they were interested in helping plan one, too. So she created an anonymous Instagram account last Thursday and began to spread the word.
“I really wasn’t expecting this many people to come out,” said Vlnar. “It was very makeshift and DIY even, but it ended up really working out, and I’m really happy that people came.” For Vlnar, seeing ICE’s actions on social media motivated her to organize.
Students from Benicia High School covered the hill at City Park. Photo: Gretchen Smail
For Vlnar, seeing ICE’s actions on social media motivated her to organize.
“Every time I open Instagram or TikTok, I’m constantly seeing all these things happen to people who are protesting and to people who are immigrants, whether they’re undocumented or not,” said Vlnar. “Even American citizens are being detained and treated unlawfully and even killed. I figured it’s time to finally end this. Let’s put our voices out there. We have the people.”
According to the Marshall Project, ICE has been holding an average of 170 children in custody a day since President Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Per The Guardian, 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025; since the start of 2026, eight people have died in ICE custody or been killed by ICE agents. ICE is currently holding the largest number of detainees in its history, according to CBS.
Students wave signs as cars honk in support. Photo: Gretchen Smail
The walkout began at 2 p.m. Vlnar and some friends went from classroom to classroom rallying students and explaining to teachers why they were doing the walkout. The protesters gathered in the quad and then marched to the City Park gazebo on First Street. So many students walked out that those at the back of the march couldn’t see where the front began.As the students walked, they waved signs that said phrases like “no one is illegal on stolen land” and “I’ll take my horchata warm because ICE sucks!” They also chanted “no ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA” as cars drove by honking in support.
Several teachers walked with the students to monitor the protest, as did Benicia police.
“We’re here to protect students, make sure they’re safe,” schools Superintendent Chris Calabrese said. “They have the right to protest.”
He added that his preference is that students are in the classroom learning, “but we have constitutional law and state law and educational code that we have to follow, and sometimes those things contradict,” Calabrese said. “So we’re just out here making sure that students aren’t causing any damage, and they’re not getting hurt either.”
Students walk down Military West to join the protest at City Park. Photo: Gretchen Smail
For many students, this was their first protest.
Sophomore Talaya Wilson said she loved seeing all her classmates participate in the walkout and voice their frustrations with the current administration.
“I don’t agree with anything that’s happening in the world right now. None of this should have happened in the first place,” Wilson said. “I’m really happy that everybody is protesting against ICE and Trump because we should have never voted for him. I’m very disappointed in my country, and in adults. Now my generation has to fix your guys’ problems.”
Senior Gabriel Gomez echoed this sentiment. “Immigrants built this country,” said Gomez. “We pick your food, we build your houses, and you want to kick us out? Nah, man.” Gomez said the administration should focus on going after real criminals rather than the “immigrants who are just trying to make a living.”
Students spread out in front of the gazebo at City Park to protest. Photo: Gretchen Smail
A 2026 UCLA study found that immigrants without a criminal record make up the largest group in ICE detention. Trump initially claimed he would only go after the “worst of the worst.”
Senior Isaiah Figueroa helped Vlnar organize the walkout. For him, the motivation to walk out was personal. “I’m a first generation Mexican-American, so seeing all this here hits really close to home for me,” said Figueroa. “We live in a world we had no say in.”
Figueroa said he’s glad that he’s now of voting age so he’ll be able to “have more of a voice” in the country.
For senior Camryn Wittry, the protest was important because it was a way to speak up for “people whose voices can’t be heard.”
She pointed out how many people brought their own signs and encouraged others to chant. “It’s amazing to see young people voice their opinions,” said Wittry. “Even though so many people here can’t vote, they’re using their First Amendment right.”
Benicia High School students protesting at City Park. Photo: Gretchen Smail
During the protest, some Benicia residents walked out from the nearby Safeway and library to cheer on the students.
“We’re really happy to see all these young people here,” said Benicia resident Wayne Eisenhart, who stood on the hill with the students to watch the protest with his wife. “It warms my heart.”
The protest ended around 3:30 p.m., with parents picking up their kids or students walking down First Street to grab food.
“It’s such a surreal feeling. So many people came out,” Vlnar said, after thanking the students for attending. She said she was proud that the protest remained under control, and that they were able to have a long moment of silence for those who have been brutalized or killed by ICE. “There were parents, and people off the street, and so many cars driving by who were honking and cheering us on. It was so, so amazing.”
The story could inspire a big-budget Hollywood political thriller. A cocaine kingpin – the corrupt president of a foreign country, no less – is convicted and jailed in the United States. But behind the scenes, right-wing tech billionaires persuade an equally corrupt American president to pardon the foreigner. In a violent side-story, the US president proudly orders illegal, lethal military attacks that kill scores of impoverished Venezuelan fishing villagers (some of whom may be small-scale traffickers) whose coke isn’t even destined for our shores and whose possible crimes pale in comparison with the kingpin’s.
In the hypothetical Hollywood version of this story, the truth comes out, the former president goes back to prison and his American counterpart resigns in shame.
In 2025, however, there is no shame and reality is stranger than fiction. Donald Trump publicly boasted of his planed pardon for former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández before then granting it. Lost in the swirl of Trump’s other transgressions, the story disappeared from the headlines soon after first surfacing.
The element of the hypothetical Hollywood version that hasn’t yet been proven in real life is the tech billionaires’ involvement. But, as reported in Mother Jones magazine, their backing for both Trump and VP JD Vance on the one hand and their proposed, Hernandez-backed state-within-a-state in Honduras on the other surely looks suspicious.
Even though in normal times such a story would be the stuff of massive scandal, it’s now business as usual when it comes to Trump’s pardons (not to mention so much else). And given that we’re now almost a decade into Trump’s reign of political terror, we must ask what’s normal anymore.
But Wait! There’s Much More…
As horrid as it is, the Hernandez story is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Trump’s abuse of the presidential pardon power. It’s true that certain of his predecessors have also milked that constitutionally granted capacity for personal or political benefit. Bill Clinton’s 2001 pardon of disgraced financier Marc Rich, apparently in return for donations to the Clinton Library and the Democratic Party, is a case in point. But neither Clinton nor anyone else comes close to the breadth and depth of what Trump has done.
Trump established his exploitation of pardons at the very start of his presidency. As summarized by an excellent post by attorney Kim Wehle at The Unpopulist site, “One of his first acts on returning to office was to issue pardons to hundreds of rioters from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, including those who had viciously assaulted police officers.” As Wehle further explains:
“It should be no surprise that some of these rioters, having been pardoned for one act of political violence, keep on plotting new acts of political violence. In February, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was arrested at the Capitol (again) for assaulting a protester. In July, Edward Kelley, who was “the fourth person to unlawfully enter the Capitol building at the forefront of the mob” and attack an officer, was convicted for a new plot to assassinate “36 individual federal, state, and local law enforcement personnel” whom he blamed for his arrest on the Capitol riot charges. Christopher Moynihan was arrested in October for planning to assassinate House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.”
“…from a corrupt sheriff convicted in a “cash for badges” scheme, to disgraced former Congressman George Santos, who may have diverted election funds to support his lavish lifestyle but “was 100% for Trump,” to the healthcare fraud conviction of the husband of Republican Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger, a Trump ally…
“Trump pardoned an executive convicted of tax fraud after the executive’s mother gave $1 million at a Trump fundraiser. The judge who sentenced him said: “there is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card for the rich.” Under Trump, there is…
“In October, he pardoned cryptocurrency fraudster Changpeng Zhao after Zhao’s company, Binance, made a deal to boost World Liberty Financial, the Trump family crypto venture.”
Legitimizing the Rule of Lawlessness
Ironically, however, the most significant pardon we’ve seen recently has not been issued by Trump, but in effect for Trump, by the Supreme Court. Though not literally a pardon, Wehle addresses the Court’s action quite well:
“In that immunity ruling, a 6-3 majority held that the exercise of “core” powers under Article II of the Constitution is absolutely immune from legal oversight, even if used criminally, and that lesser “official actions” are presumptively immune unless prosecutors can show that criminally confining a presidential act would pose no “dangers on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.”
In other words, this was Trump’s own get-out-of-jail-free card, including for corruptly influenced pardons since they’re within the presidency’s “core” powers.
We’re accustomed to thinking that no one is above the law, at least in principle and hopefully in fact. The Supreme Court decided the opposite.
Of course, the immediate and history-shattering benefit of the Court’s egregious ruling wasn’t for President Trump in 2025 but for Indicted Trump in 2024: the decision so delayed and constrained Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election that Smith dropped the charges after Trump’s 2024 electoral victory.
A Larger Problem
An even larger problem we face, however, isn’t Trump’s legal transgressions but the fact that they apparently don’t dent his political and moral standing for large parts of the public. Yes, his approval numbers are dropping to about 40 percent or less in most surveys. And yes, the prospects of his suffering more political reversals are rising. This is evinced by everything from far-right-wing Majorie Taylor Greene’s declarations of independence to the Democrats’ increasing prospects for retaking the House of Representatives next year to the possibility of yet more sordid Jeffery Epstein revelations soiling Trump’s brand even among supporters.
But whatever happened to someone simply paying a penalty for cheating and lying, not least by blatantly exploiting a presidential power to pardon political and financial allies? Like so many of Trump’s disruptions, this is all going on in plain sight and is in effect pardoned, so to speak, by much of the public.
And while we certainly can understand folks prioritizing the damages he’s doing to our pocketbooks in assessing him, it doesn’t seem like his consistently egregious self-dealing makes much of a difference in his standing. It’s just another day at the Oval Office.
So, with great respect for everyone who’s fighting for democracy, national security and the rule of law, or who dread the crisis even as they simply try to get by during these tough times, certain words may sum up how history will judge many other Americans who condone or endorse what Trump is doing:
By Stephen Golub, Benicia resident and author. October 26, 2025. [First published in the Benicia Herald on 10/26/25.]
This really is important: On Wednesday, October 29, the Bay Area Air District is holding a 5:30-7 pm Zoom meeting (Webinar) to discuss draft guidelines for use of penalty/settlement funds for air pollution violations. As a result of the $82 million Air District fine for Valero’s 15 years of undisclosed toxic emissions, Benicia is by far the greatest potential beneficiary so far: $54 million (plus possible interest) is supposed to be set aside for Benicia-specific projects.
But there’s potentially big trouble in paradise, which is why Benicians’ Zoom participation in the October 29 meeting is crucial. The devil is in the details of how the Air District’s new Local Community Investment Fund’s (LCIF) grants will be awarded for Benicia and other communities, starting next year. If the guidelines impose a bureaucratic, restrictive process, Benicia will have considerable trouble weathering the financial storm that will lash us (also starting next year) as Valero’s contributions to the city coffers come to an end.
I don’t want to jump to conclusions or urge others to do so. But I fear that the restrictive approach could be the direction the Air District takes. I hope that I’m wrong.
We’re talking about $54 million or more that could and should mainly be decided on by Benicia, rather than the staff of the Community Investments Office (CIO), which administers the Fund.
A restrictive, top-down approach dominated by CIO staff rather than driven by Benicia and other communities may also limit our ability to best grapple with the very challenges the CIO’s site says the Fund aims to address: “Funding will support community-driven solutions that reduce or mitigate air pollution, improve public health, and build economic resilience for a just transition.”
Along with serving other purposes, the Fund can and should contribute to budget support that will help close the city’s post-Valero financial gap for a number of years. This will strengthen Benicia’s “economic resilience for a just transition.”
I emphasize this because there’s another Benicia-specific factor at play here. The Air District failed to uncover Valero’s egregious toxic emissions for over 15 years. It certainly fell short by waiting over three additional years to inform Benicia after it found out.
Had this information come to light far sooner, might it have helped cut down on Benicia cancer rates that are far higher than state and county levels (including nearly double California’s breast cancer incidence)? That’s hard to say.
Furthermore, it might be counterproductive to press this point on the Air District, or to do so in any but the most diplomatic ways.
Finally, to the Air District’s great credit, it installed new, vigorous leadership after this fiasco came to light in 2022. But this all weighs in favor of the Air District awarding the LCIF grants flexibly to Benicia.
Another factor that weighs in terms of the flexible approach is Benicia’s nearly unprecedented situation: Refineries don’t close every day, to put it mildly. From financial recovery to environmental clean-up (complicated by Valero land previously being used for military ordinance testing), our challenges are daunting – even as the opportunities for our community’s quality of life, public health and economic prosperity (such as through tourism development) are inspiring. A just transition requires that the Air District take a just approach to partnership with Benicia.
Thus, if the CIO finalizes the guidelines in ways that allow our city appropriate flexibility in the use of the funds, it will be a boon to Benicia. But the benefits extend beyond Benicia; similar flexibility will be best for other Bay Area communities regarding other Air District fines.
The 90-minute October 29 Webinar is our only chance to hear about and weigh in on the draft guidelines via a public forum (with perhaps two minutes per public comment). Let’s not let it slide by. Even if you don’t want to comment during the meeting, simply showing up (albeit via Zoom) can show that we care.
There’s already cause for concern, in that the draft guidelines won’t be released until tomorrow, October 27, just two days before the meeting. That’s precious little time for the public to review them. But let’s try.
When you reach that link, please scroll down to the “Meetings and Events” section. Click the “Pre-register” box there and fill in the required information.
Once you get the CIO confirmation email, scroll down to a blue box that says, “Join Webinar.” (While that link is functional, of course it won’t actually become active until the October 29 meeting.)
If you wish to weigh in before or after the meeting – and perhaps to receive the guidelines as soon as they are issued on October 27 – you can email you comments, questions and guidelines request to communityinvestments@baaqmd.gov. (The comments deadline is less than a month later, on November 25.)
If you do decide to participate, be it via Zoom or email, I’m sure you’ll have your own ideas on what to prioritize. But for what it’s worth, to my mind the most basic message is that Benicia and other beneficiary communities standing to benefit from the Local Community Investment Fund should have as much leeway as possible in utilizing the settlements/penalties they each receive, as long as they broadly fit within the Air District funding parameters I’ve flagged: “support community-driven solutions that reduce or mitigate air pollution, improve public health, and build economic resilience for a just transition.” This is consistent with and in fact mandated by the Air District’s emphasis on partnering with rather than dictating to Bay Area communities.
I’m harping on all this not just because of the impact on Benicia, but because most of my career involved advising funding agencies on the best foci and approaches for awarding grants for community-oriented, environmental and other projects. I worked for and with the Asia, Ford and Open Societies Foundations, as well as the American, British and Danish aid agencies and numerous other funders.
The single biggest lesson I took away from those 35+ years of work was this: Grants work best when they are as simple as possible and provide as much leeway as possible to responsible local governments or community groups that receive them, as long as sensible financial auditing is in place.
If the CIO goes down this flexible road, it will be best for Benicia (and the Bay Area) in terms of advancing clean air, public health, economic resilience and the post-Valero transition. It also will ensure the most efficient use of funds.
To be clear, I’m not saying that the Air District, via the CIO, should simply turn over the $54 million or more to Benicia; though that might make sense, I don’t believe that Air District rules allow this. I also don’t doubt the sincerity and dedication of the CIO staff who will administer the Fund.
But the finalized guidelines should provide the necessary flexibility for Benicia and other communities to decide how to use the funds within the broad parameters the CIO has already set. It’s our future that’s on the line.[sta_anchor id=”below” /]
Stranger Than Fiction
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