On the Nationwide Crackdown and Violence Against Anti-ICE Student Protesters
Pictured: Enumclaw police kneel on the neck of a high school student protester on Feb 13 in Washington (photo & article credit Ray Miller-Still, Courier-Herald)
If students protesting ICE have their way, the sparks of mass resistance will spread to the mass deportation machine and bring deportations and detentions to a grinding halt. The young people who have turned out in the thousands are on the frontline, leading a protest movement bubbling up in cities and towns across the country. For stepping out against ICE, for walking out of their schools in defiance, students are facing retaliation and punishment, facing down pro-Trump weirdos, even taking arrests and physical violence. But young people aren’t backing down. They’re still walking out, and they’re still sticking a middle finger to administrators and police departments who want to silence them.
Student walkouts should only result in an unexcused absence. Instead, schools around the US are suspending students en masse to try to spread fear among them. Following a walkout in February, Woodbridge High School in Virginia suspended 323 students, nearly 10% of the student body. The school’s principal, Heather Abney, claimed that students were suspended for leaving campus grounds during school hours, not because they were protesting ICE. After organizing another walkout that stayed on campus, one student said, “I really think that walking out of the school grounds itself was absolutely crucial to get our point across.”
With a similar rationale, Oklahoma superintendent Dr. Charles Bradley suspended 122 students from Mustang Public Schools for their participation in a walkout. Right-wing governor Kevin Stitt celebrated the punishment (he seems to be trying to win favor with President Trump). Manvel High School in Texas first suspended an undocumented student following her participation in a February 13th walkout and has now suspended at least 8 more. The administration cited students leaving campus as the motivating factor in their retaliation, not the content of the protest. Manvel teachers and admin physically restrained students and tore up their signs in a desperate attempted to shut down the walkout. Students reported that one administrator twisted a student’s arm, leaving bright red marks. Principals and teachers reportedly told students they would “lose their licenses if they didn’t prevent the walk out” as a justification for coming down on students so hard. In the week prior, Governor Greg Abbot threatened to pull funding from schools who “allow” walkouts to happen and demanded that students walking out receive unexcused absences and appropriate punishment. He even said students should be arrested for participating in school walkouts.
In San Antonio, East Central High School expelled 2 students, remanded one to alternative disciplinary school and suspended over 20 others for 10 days. When this harsh action was exposed, they reduced the punishments to suspensions ranging from 10-45 days, likely to avoid litigation. Again, administration claimed their retaliation was not politically motivated, but due to unauthorized departures from school grounds. San Antonio Students for Peace said of the harsh repression of East Central students: “A reminder… our officials didn’t even say suspension was required by law, you choose to interpret it like that to avoid any pressure. Instead, you are facing pressure from your community and your students. Who are you prioritizing?”
In Marietta High School in Georgia, the superintendent physically restrained students from walking out of class and blocked the exits of the school. In New York, at Morris Academy in the Bronx, administrators trapped student organizers in separate rooms and physically barred them from walking out. At Center Highschool in Kansas, admins trapped students inside the school, attempting to prevent a walkout. One well-known autistic student managed to squeeze through to the outside and a school cop body slammed him. After the cop assaulted him, the student had a seizure and was rushed to the hospital. The school claimed it was preventing a walkout for the “safety” of their students. In Quakertown, Pennsylvania, when students left their campus despite threats of suspension, their principal called the police out of “concern for student safety”. The sheriff’s department, and the Sherriff himself (in plain clothes), proceeded to violently accost and brutalize the young students. When students tried to defend themselves against these unidentified adults attacking them, the cops arrested 5 students.
Schools stubbornly assert safety and educational concerns as justification for their punitive actions against students. They adamantly deny any political motivation behind the retaliation. But the level of repression, with permanent damages to student records and physical assaults in the wake of student protests, suggest that admin may be more concerned with keeping their jobs or avoiding scrutiny from government officials than they are about student safety or their futures. If it was all about safety, why did the police chief in Quakertown put a student in a chokehold?
These punishments also cannot be viewed in a vacuum, because pro-ICE government officials and schoolboard members have openly criticized anti-ICE protests and threatened schools who allow student walkouts, effectively pitting teachers and administrators against student protesters. Gutless admin and teachers have either buckled under this pressure, intimidating and punishing students to avoid losing their careers, or have simply repressed students of their own volition because they disagree with the content of their protest. Despite suspensions and punishments, students have told us they have no regrets and that it was worth it. In the aftermath of the walkouts, many students have rapidly coordinated more walkouts in defiance of school administration. Students recognize this is a righteous cause, and that they are the makers of history.
Adults in power act out, others stand with students
Some teachers and administrators have courageously supported or allowed walkouts to happen on their watch, putting the target for repression on their backs, instead of their students. In LA, teacher Ricardo Lopez opened a gate for students to leave campus during a walkout, recalling that in a previous walkout a student had cracked his head while jumping the gate. He informed the principal of his actions and an hour later the school fired him. In San Antonio, several school districts are under state investigation directed by Greg Abbotts’s Department of Education for student-led walk outs. An Orange County school was criticized by a schoolboard member for passing out what she referred to as “anti-ICE cards” to students. These cards were actually “know your rights” cards, detailing the civil rights students possess and how to assert them when approached by law enforcement officers.
In South Carolina, an SRO officer infiltrated a walkout group chat following a tip provided by a right-wing wannabe pundit. A local woman joined the chat to express her support for the student walkout, relayed twisted threats made against students online and committed to showing up with a group of other adults to assist with the walkout. This woman is now charged with “contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” facing up to six years in jail and a $6,000 fine. The losers who made threats against students on Facebook have faced no repercussions. In Austin, TX an adult attempting to provide snacks and first aid to students during a walkout was arrested as a student righteously defended her.
When the government can’t rely on schools and adults to stay in line and control student dissent, they rely on other means. In LA, when a massive student walkout descended on the Metropolitan Detention Center, which actively holds ICE detainees, DHS agents targeted a young student and attempted to arrest her. The crowd managed to free her, but later Central CA District Attorney Bill Essayli released photos of two students involved in the march on MDC, labeling them “suspects” and threatening them with criminal prosecution.
In Texas, local police departments accosted student organizers and questioned them on their involvement in “domestic terrorism” for their part in planning a school walkout. Also in Texas, the pigs detained five middle school students after their schools did not prevent their walkout. Back in Quakertown, following the violent arrests, the DA dealt out trumped up charges to students, some as serious as felony aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. The students remained in custody for over a day until a blizzard hit and trapped them inside the jail over a long weekend. This malicious act by the Sherrif’s department put students at risk of facing blizzard related power-outages and food shortages alone in jail, rather than with their families where they should have been all along. Some students remained in custody as long as a week before they were released with ankle monitors and placed on house arrest.
The unpaid agents of political repression
On top of the political repression of students coming from schools and the government, there is a willing supply of vapid right-wing wannabe influencers who are happy to pile on. On January 29th in Freemont, Nebraska, an SUV sporting a Trump flag drove past an anti-ICE protest multiple times before the driver stepped out of the vehicle to heckle the students. When he went to drive away, he hit a student protester and then sped away from the scene. The student was transported to the hospital. The Freemont police department found the hit and run culprit, but the county attorney has yet to file charges. In another case, an adult harassed student protesters with her phone out, and when students told her to get the fuck out and surrounded her, she assaulted a female student and felt the consequences as students retaliated in self-defense.
In Texas, a MAGA man approached an anti-ICE protest hurling hateful rhetoric, and when a young student went toe to toe with his insults, he assaulted her and again was met with swift action as her peers came to her defense. On February 13th, in Enumclaw, Washington, a man crashed a student walkout and assaulted a student. When the students rallied together to tell him to leave, he acted like a cop, saying “back the fuck up” while getting closer to students. He finally called the police after antagonizing students didn’t have his desired effect. The police later kneeled on a student’s neck before arresting him. A second student stayed close to the detained protester, and the police arrested her, too. The adult has yet to face repercussions.
In these instances, we see police targeting students for speaking out against ICE while allowing adults and counter-protesters to violently assault students without consequence. Despite police claiming their actions are not politically motivated, the disparity of their actions is glaring. Every day in the US, police officers, ICE agents and DA’s choose to arrest, charge, brutalize and kill people for things like sleeping on sidewalks, opposing ICE, or minding their own business. All the while these same people who claim to be all about justice REFUSE to charge or hold accountable their own when they commit murders and brutality—even when it’s caught on camera. Their actions make it abundantly clear that their loyalties lie with the ruling class. Police willingness to brutalize teenagers when they speak out and let fucking sickos off clearly demonstrates they are on the side of the mass deportation machine and maintaining the status quo.
Fighting Political Repression to Pave the Way for More Courageous Resistance
We applaud the students who have taken risks to do the right thing. They are bravely facing aggressive administrators, suspensions, expulsions, violent cops, and unhinged Trump freaks to stand up and say no business as usual until ICE terror stops. Students have often been on the leading edge of fights for justice. With this wave of walkouts, they’re stepping out as makers of a better world.
But courage doesn’t mean facing the consequences alone. Fighting back against political repression can and should be another avenue for opposing and delegitimizing the deportation machine and the people who protect it. We have had a lot of success fighting repression, from getting trumped up charges outright dropped to filing civil suits against cities who trample on first amendment protected activities to successfully pushing schools to reduce punishments against student protesters. For example, in San Antonio, East Central High School originally leveled extreme punishments on student protesters. The public spoke up at a board meeting, an article condemning the actions was written, a news story was published from student and parent perspectives, student leaders held a press conference, and soon enough, the district reversed some of the harsh punishments.
This does not mean we will beat every instance of political repression, but we must fight like hell to make sure each person’s courage and sacrifice furthers the movement. Even when we lose, it is an opportunity to invite people on the sidelines to step up to defend protesters and students, in effect growing the movement and making it more resilient to the repression that is sure to come as we get closer to melting ICE.
Numerous lawyers have informed us that students have limited protection of their first amendment rights during school hours, and it will be a tough legal process to change these circumstances. Our system is strategically designed to quell and mitigate student dissent. Though we are working with lawyers to pressure schools to reverse punishments, we cannot wait for legal circumstances to change to continue speaking out. Instead, we must build an opposition capable of forcing those in power to make these changes. Successful civil rights claims do not start in a courtroom; they start when the public has had enough and is ready to show it. It is right to rebel against ICE, and just as right-wing and democrat politicians, schools, and the media are working overtime to vilify or quiet student protesters, so can we work to defend and legitimize their righteous defiance against the mass deportation machine.
One method is through exposure: the more people with eyes on these instances of student repression, and the bigger the backlash that schools, police, and right-wing agitators face, the more carefully they will begin to tread.
By exposing political repression through media outlets, social media, and agitating on trains and street corners, we can teach people to recognize and oppose political repression where they see it in addition to mobilizing people to fight against it. Here are some ideas:
- Phone zaps have been a key tool in disrupting the day to day of those engaged in political repression. Put together a crew to call these DA’s and schools every day until they roll back these punishments and drop the charges.
- Show up to confront schoolboards and officials responsible for repression. Often times, if they think it’s going to be too much trouble to carry out punishments and charges, they will back down. If students in your town faced repression, reach out to Dare to Struggle to plan an action!
- If you are student, start talking to your parents about the political repression you or students across the country are facing. If they are down, talk to them about how they can support students speaking out. If they are passionate about this issue, tell them to hit us up.
- Keep on stepping out! Do not let repression win, rally people to your cause and refuse to be silenced!
Our call to action for those reading this is to refuse to stand down and accept student or any type of political repression. Get creative, reach out to Dare to Struggle to strategize, and join the Spring Surge to melt ICE to continue building the collective power to beat repression and the mass deportation machine itself.
Dare to Struggle 