In defense of student walkout protests against ICE

Teachers crowded together on an elevated concrete planter to watch as about 250 of our students began walking out of school. The students intended to join with other high schools’ anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement walkouts and march to Van Nuys City Hall — about a five-mile walk from our high school. 

Administrators and campus security were there, but nobody tried to stop the students from walking out. We were told that the Los Angeles Unified School District had ordered some of its downtown people to follow student groups in cars to keep an eye on them.  

One of those who walked out was Roberto, a senior whose father was deported in November. There is little room for protest in his life, as he works to support his family while trying to stay on track to graduate. He texted me, “Yo sacks I will be out, exercising my first amendment rights, respect your class mucho, I apologize for not being able to go.” 

I would have preferred for him to stay for class, but I didn’t argue. I couldn’t argue. 

We were relieved that the photos students were sending us along the way indicated a peaceful march. Some student protesters were annoyed at a few who, under the pretense of protesting, simply went home to play video games.  

I sat in the middle of a class of juniors, half of whom were gone, to discuss what was happening. Many of them had a story about a parent, an aunt, an uncle or a grandparent — hard-working immigrants, struggling to support children here while also sending remittance money to families back home. Over the last year, students say, these people’s lives have been turned upside down.

The general attitude among teachers has been sympathetic. But there are many outside the school system, including some prominent California political candidates and national media, who oppose the protesters and blame us for the walk-outs.  

The Editorial Board of News Corp’s California Post mocked the idea that students feel fighting ICE is a “cause important to them.” They blame “the adults who indoctrinate and scare them by demonizing all things Trump, including ICE,” and call for an end to “winking and nodding — from adults who know better — at student lawbreaking.” 

California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton (R) points the finger at “far-left activists taking over teachers’ unions” for the protests, while California state superintendent candidate Sonja Shaw ties teachers unions to the protests and says students are being used as “pawns.” 

Many in the backlash have called for punishing student protesters and are applauding school districts that have done so. Others, like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), are targeting educators.

Conservative critic Catherine Salgado made a salient point when she accused protesting students and sympathetic teachers of “not in the least regard[ing] whether their behavior is illegal.” True enough. But ICE is throwing Los Angeles families into chaos, removing breadwinners and caregivers. Some students are afraid to come to school, and many parents are afraid to bring them.

Fewer than one in seven immigrants arrested by ICE over the last year actually had U.S. charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses. These raids are taking a heavy toll on our students.  

Moreover, many of us are aware, even if most Americans aren’t, of the horrendous conditions in some of the countries students come from, and the direct role the U.S. often played in creating these conditions.

In Guatemala, for example, the U.S. overthrew a democratically-elected government, setting off a 36-year civil war in which 200,000 people died. The U.S. role in El Salvador and in certain other countries was broadly similar. This recent past weighs heavily on those nations.

For those who fled conditions the U.S. helped create, having the opportunity to stay here seems a very modest recompense. Yet White House border czar Tom Homan and others speak of them as if they are no more than thoughtless lawbreakers who chose to “jump the line” ahead of legal immigrants.

Teachers generally aren’t thrilled about student walkouts. We worry about students’ safety, and the walkouts derail our semester lesson plans. And as with many protests, some protesters have broken ranks and done something stupid or harmful. But the bottom line is that our students are peacefully speaking out in defense of their embattled, long-suffering families and communities.

Glenn Sacks teaches high school government and economics in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

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