Colorado ICE Walkout: 200 Schools Stage Protest

On Friday, September 4, students at more than 200 high schools across Colorado walked out of class around noon in a statewide Colorado ICE walkout protesting immigration enforcement. Organizers said schools from Brush to Grand Junction took part, with students leaving classrooms between 10:30 a.m. and noon, according to Colorado Public Radio.

In Denver, hundreds of students from several area high schools converged on La Alma-Lincoln Park for a rally against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many reached the park on foot. Marvin McNeil, a 15-year-old junior at Manuel High School, left during math class and walked three miles with a handful of friends to get there, saying he wanted to set an example for young people who want to act but feel they can't.

A 16-year-old organized it on Instagram

The walkout was the work of the Colorado Youth Coalition, a student-led protest group co-founded earlier this year by Bre Kennedy, a 16-year-old junior at Grandview High School in Aurora. Kennedy told Colorado Public Radio the whole thing came together through social media. She posted on Instagram that about 20 schools were participating, and the post took off, eventually drawing 200K views.

Kennedy said her Instagram DMs were flooded after the post blew up, which let her plug in far more schools and get them organized. She said the campaign pulled together student activists across the state who often feel isolated in their own communities. "Being a kid, people say, 'Oh, you can't be into politics. You're too young. You can't vote. Your voice doesn't matter.' I think kids are tired of hearing that," she said.

The Denver rally also drew support beyond the student body. Melat Kiros, the Democratic congressional candidate who defeated longtime incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in the June primary for Colorado's 1st Congressional District, stopped by to address the crowd. Kiros, who immigrated to the U.S. from Ethiopia when she was 11 months old, applauded the students for showing up despite threats of school suspensions and online harassment. "These students are brave," she said. "They're getting threatened with suspensions. They're getting harassed online right now. And they still chose to show up and fight for what they think is right."

A tense afternoon at La Alma-Lincoln Park

The demonstration was largely peaceful, but the afternoon turned tense at points. A handful of counter-protesters gathered at the park's margins, including one masked man holding a sign that read "I Love ICE" and another carrying a microphone, apparently recording himself while asking students provocative questions. Some students yelled at and shoved the instigators and threw water bottles at them, while teachers, adult organizers, and Denver Public Schools security officers tried to redirect attention and hold the crowd back.

When students prepared to march through the streets around the park, Denver police declared it an unlawful assembly and directed the crowd to disperse. State Sen. Julie Gonzales, who attended in support of the students, helped organizers redirect the march onto the surrounding sidewalks instead. In a statement, the Denver Police Department said no one was arrested, though two people were cited for graffiti and three people were transported to hospitals with unknown injuries. Police reported at least five assaults or altercations and said the demonstration had no permit or safety plan, "which contributed to an unsafe environment for participants." Organizers had repeatedly urged students not to engage with counter-protesters. The crowd dispersed by early evening with no further incidents, according to the police statement.

PULSE Colorado, a volunteer group that provides emergency medical care at community gatherings, had a tent set up in the park. The Brown Berets of Tepetlán were also there in support of the students.

Why they say they walked out

The students who walked out spoke in personal terms about immigration enforcement touching their families and communities. Liliana Garcia-Martinez, a 15-year-old sophomore at Lincoln High School, left during chemistry class to support friends and family she said don't have a voice of their own.

Kirrabella Cruz, a 16-year-old junior who walked over from East High School, said she came because she is the descendant of immigrants, and she believed her immigrant great-grandparents would be disappointed to see people deported for chasing the American Dream.

Jesse Monte, a 15-year-old who lives in Aurora, said he doesn't want an ICE detention center in his community. Aurora is home to a detention facility run by the GEO Group, according to Colorado Newsline. Monte, who described himself as coming from a large Mexican family, said he walked out to support people who have already been deported and to try to stop it from happening to more families.

Emunah Zalkin, 16, a junior at Compassion Road Academy near downtown Denver, joined with roughly half of her classmates. She said missing class was nothing compared with what the people affected by deportations are going through. Naya Ferguson, a 16-year-old student at Bear Creek High School in Jefferson County, drove to the park after watching a large group walk out of her own school. "What ICE is doing is just unconstitutional, unlawful. It's inhumane, and I just don't want to sit back and just watch it happen," she said. "It's not who I am."

Kudo Macher, a 15-year-old at the Denver School of the Arts, said she understood why some students clashed with counter-protesters, pointing to the stress teenagers feel about the state of the world and elected officials she said aren't doing the right thing. Her friend Kennedy Fox, also 15, said she believed violence diminishes the message, but she was proud that so many students showed up for a cause instead of just skipping class. Elliot Valdez, a 17-year-old at Denver Montessori Junior/Senior High School, walked an hour from school to attend and said the turnout gave them hope for future generations, though they added they can't wait until they're old enough to vote.

What comes next

Kiros urged the students to treat the walkout as a starting point rather than a one-off, telling the crowd that young people have long stood at the front of movements for change and progress. For Kennedy, the Colorado Youth Coalition's next test is whether the network it built so quickly can hold together. The group started with a single Instagram post naming about twenty schools; by the day of the protest, that number had grown past two hundred.

The Colorado action was not the only student walkout this month. California students staged a statewide walkout against ICE of their own, and in Australia, students held a second nationwide walkout against One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.

Reporting: Colorado Public Radio; Colorado Newsline's account of the walkout as republished by the Pagosa Daily Post.