‘ICE out!’ Seattle students gather downtown to protest federal immigration crackdown

Hundreds of Seattle-area students walked out of school Thursday and gathered at Seattle City Hall downtown to protest the tactics of federal immigration enforcement officers across the country.

The Seattle walkout is part of a wave of protests that have sprung up across the region and across the U.S. after two people were shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.

Thursday’s protests included walkouts in Baltimore, Austin, Dallas, and York, Pennsylvania.

Students in south King County walked out of schools earlier this week. Thursday’s protest was attended by nearly 20 public and private schools in the Seattle area.

Amara Aalfs-Weinbaum, a senior at Lakeside Upper School, is an organizer of “ICE Out of Schools,” which led the protest.

She said education is a fundamental human right, and access to it isn’t based on one’s immigration status.

“It's the threat and the fear of intimidation while you're trying to pursue your education, which to me, is really horrible,” she said. “Using intimidation tactics and fear and literally abducting children and pulling them into cars on their way to school is a violation of our human rights. That's something that everyone should be standing up for.”

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Seattle Public School officials announced at the end of January that they are instructing all school employees to alert their principal, safety, and security staff if they observe or receive reports of federal immigration enforcement activity.

The announcement came after unconfirmed reports of ICE activity led four schools in south Seattle to shelter in place for several hours on Tuesday, Jan. 20.

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Aalfs-Weinbaum said the fear tactics ICE uses goes beyond issues surrounding immigration. It also plays into the Trump administration’s efforts to attack the education system.

Two Minnesota school districts backed by the state teachers' union filed a lawsuit Wednesday over the Department of Homeland Security’s 2025 decision to rescind schools as a safe zone from ICE raids, according to Minnesota Public Radio. The lawsuit states DHS violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it walked back the policy. The federal statute governs the process by which federal agencies propose and establish regulations to ensure transparency and fairness.

Minnesota school leaders said the decision led to federal agents targeting schools, harassing board members, and detaining parents and staff over the past two months.

According to the suit, school districts across Minnesota have seen a significant drop in attendance because parents, children, and teachers, regardless of immigration status, are afraid to go to school.

Aalfs-Weinbaum said the Trump administration is effectively limiting high-quality public education to the wealthiest and whitest Americans.

“Education is a tool of resistance, it enables dissent,” she said. “ICE’s efforts to cause intimidation and prevent people from going to school, especially immigrant kids, is an effort to crush dissent.”

Walking out of class is not an excuse to skip school, Aalfs-Weinbaum said. She said students are making a personal decision to participate because not everyone has the ability to protest.

“It’s standing up for people when you have the privilege to say something and other people don’t,” she said.