GRPS students from the Museum School engage in a walkout to protest ICE terrorism in Grand Rapids

Around 100 students from the Grand Rapids Public School’s Museum High School organized a walkout on Wednesday at 2pm to join the growing number of people in Grand Rapids and across the country to oppose to terrorist tactics of ICE.

A student group in Lowell organized a walkout earlier this week, along with high school and college students that have been doing this over the past 12 months, after the Trump Administration announced that he was engage in mass deportations and then increased the budget for ICE to roughly $75 billion.

Student walkouts are part of a longstanding tradition of protest and resistance around the world and in the US, like the 22,000  Mexican America students across seven schools in East L.A did in 1968 as part of the larger civil rights struggle that Chicano organizers were part of. This student-led walkout was so impactful and so famous that it was made into a movie called Walkout.

The GRPS student walkout was supported by people who provided crowd safety, to make sure they were not harassed during their march, which took them to Rosa Parks Circle.

Throughout the march students engaged in numerous chants, but the most power was reflected in their demand to ABOLISH ICE!. This message is consistent with what a growing numerous of immigrant justice groups around the country have been demanding, along with local groups such as Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE.

When the GRPS students arrived at Rosa Parks Circle, several of them read statements that denounced how ICE has been terrorizing immigrant families and communities, along with calling for the abolition of ICE.

One student who had brought his guitar also sang a song which spoke to the aspirations of young people wanting to live in a world without fear from government agencies like ICE.

The students then marched back to their school on Jefferson and State Street, just a few blocks from Rosa Parks Circle. It was inspiring for me to witness this action and to be invited to take part. Student groups have always been part of nation movements for justice and this movement for immigrant justice and the abolition of ICE.