Shelley Feist, 61, protests regularly near the White House. Here she is pictured in Washington, DC, across from the Capitol building.

EL PASO, TX ‒ Bonnie Daniels and Dee Anne Croucher didn't expect to spend their retirement in the florescent-lit halls of immigration court, facing down masked ICE agents.

But that's where they head daily to quietly challenge President Donald Trump's crackdown. They warn immigrants what awaits them. They hand out Sharpies so each can write an emergency contact phone number on their forearm. They hold the immigrants' hands, walking shoulder to shoulder with them into the crowd of agents blocking the exit.

Like other seniors on the front lines of resistance to the Trump administration, Daniels and Croucher are old enough to have protested the Vietnam War and to have not trusted anyone over 30.

Now they and a number of their peers are spending their golden years standing outside the White House with handmade signs, hosting sit-ins, picketing on rural street corners and protesting Trump's amped-up immigration enforcement.

Research shows Americans tend to become more conservative as they grow older, and 79-year-old Republican Trump boasts legions of his own septuagenarian fans.

But seniors who have held on to the politics of their youth say they have the time, energy and guts to anchor the protest movements and anti-Trump activism surging around the country.

When a Trump aide made headlines in August for disparaging senior activists in Washington, DC, as "elderly white hippies," the comment infuriated some and fired up others.

"We're the activists from the Vietnam era," said Daniels, 68, a retired social worker and third-generation Mexican American. "The women's movement and the Chicano movement and the Black movement. I am proud to be an old hippie. I wear that as a badge of honor."

Older progressives are the political minority

Twenty-five years ago, age wasn't the determining factor in politics that it is today.

In the late 1990s, voters in their 70s and voters in their 20s had the same partisan makeup: They were 52% Democrat and 46% Republican, according to Pew Research.

That has changed. Now, and for the past decade, the majority of voters under 30 tend to vote Democrat while the majority of voters over 60 lean Republican. Although there are numerous reasons for the shift, one stands out, said Gary Alan Fine, a Northwestern University sociologist who has studied the dynamics of golden-years activism.

"As you become financially more secure you have more to lose," he said, and that pushes more people toward conservative politics. "The idea of change is hard."

There's another factor, too: gender.

Most of the activists at the El Paso immigration court are senior women, including Daniels and Croucher. Many of the older activists organizing protests, joining Zoom meetings and holding signs on street corners are women, too.

"If you look at any kind of survey, women tend to skew more liberal than men," Fine said. "It's the great political divide."

'We're not dead yet'

Being in the party-political minority isn't stopping them.

Retired teacher and child advocate Karen Craig, 83, never called herself a "hippie." But she was among the unionized teachers who staged a walkout early in her career. Today she lives in Rensselaer, Indiana – population 5,733 – in a county where three-quarters of voters sided with Trump in the 2024 election.

"People my age, as we got older and had families and full-time jobs, we didn't have time to actively protest," she said. "We didn’t have time to take off from the children – but now we do.

"And we're very, very scared about the way our country is moving right now."

Younger activists may expend more energy online and show up in real life when their work and school schedules allow. But older activists say they are more likely to sign out and hit the streets.

Shelley Feist, 61, didn't expect to retire so young, but the arrival of the second Trump administration persuaded her to leave her job in the nonprofit sector and make space for full-time activism.

The Washington, DC, resident has attended marches in the capital and has spent hours standing outside the White House holding a homemade Styrofoam sign with the GOP elephant on it and the word "treason."

"I'm making a judgment call that, yeah, I believe the in-real-life stuff is more compelling," she said.

"We all know the image of the man who stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square," she said, referring to the China's 1989 crackdown against dissidents. "I know people who are willing to do things like that, and they inspire me."

It was White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller who trolled a group of elder activists shouting down Vice President JD Vance in August at the capital's Union Station. Vance was promoting Trump's efforts to combat violent crime in the city.

Miller labeled the protesters "elderly white hippies" in a city that historically has had a high number of Black residents.

"This is not a city that has had any safety for its Black citizens for generations," Miller said. "President Trump is the one who is fixing that. So we're going to ignore these stupid white hippies. They all need to go home and take a nap because they're all over 90 years old."

Some of Craig's activist friends are in their 90s, she said. And this summer, they showed up with her to the "No Kings" and "Hands Off" protests in her small Indiana town and others to oppose what she sees as an erosion of democratic norms. She did it for her daughters and grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, she said.

"I hate to think of the next two generations having to deal with an autocratic government," Craig said. "I don't think it's inevitable; I think things could change, and that's why I'm willing to go out and demonstrate.

"We're not dead yet. And as long as we can keep going, we will keep going."

'We have to witness it'

Daniels and Croucher waited on the seventh floor of a federal building as immigrants filed out of immigration courtrooms, some believing the extension or dismissal of their cases meant good news.

But Leticia Gutierrez, a gray-haired Catholic nun, asked them to sit down. Croucher handed a 4-year-old boy a Hot Wheels car to distract him as his Venezuelan father and mother listened. Croucher kissed a tearful Mexican woman on the forehead as she passed by.

"Behind you are ICE officials," Gutierrez said, nodding toward the nine agents visible through windows. "Take photos of your documents, your alien number, warn your family."

Daniels and Croucher took car keys from each of the immigrants so they could hand them over to a family member if they were detained.

Gutierrez shadowed the Venezuelan family as they walked down the hall, phone numbers written in black permanent marker on their forearms. Daniels and Croucher followed close behind.

As they rounded the corner, an ICE agent called out the Venezuelan mother's name. She burst into tears.

"My God, they took the family," Croucher said as the agents escorted them away. "I can't believe they took the family."

Croucher and Daniels returned to accompany the Mexican woman next, and Daniels patted her shoulder reassuringly. A masked agent intercepted her.

"Yo les llamo a tu familia," Daniels called out as agents led the woman to a freight elevator inaccessible to the public. "I'll call your family."

Croucher stood in the hallway, forlorn.

"I just feel like we have to witness it," she said, explaining why she comes back again and again. "You can't let people disappear with nobody watching. Someday, I think, we have to have a record of this horror."

Lauren Villagran can be reached at lvillagran@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: They used to be young activists. Now they're 'old hippies' protesting Trump.

Reporting by Lauren Villagran, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect