On January 16, Shorewood High School students walked out of class to protest ICE activity during the Trump administration. The group of students, totalling around 100 students, walked out after their fourth hour class, and headed to Shorewood Village Hall, where students and state assembly representatives Darrin Madison and Ryan Clancy gave speeches, before making their way back to class for fifth hour.
ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been a polarizing political topic in recent months, as following the 2024 election, President Donald Trump has both increased the agency’s budget and the amount of raids and detainments agents are expected to complete. Running on an anti-immigration platform, Trump has continuously promised to deport the “worst of the worst”.
Despite this, ICE has not only detained and deported several US citizens, detained undocumented immigrants without a judges’ warrant, but also shot two Minnesota residents Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Since the agency ramped up their efforts, widespread anti-ICE protests have been held across all 50 states.
The Shorewood walkout, led by senior Diego Murphy, mainly cited concerns about violation of constitutional rights, racial profiling, illegal detainments, and deaths of both those held in ICE detention centers and those protesting ice activity.
“As a student there’s certain things you can do, whether it’s a walk out, teach in, just showing up, whatever it is,” Murphy said. “There’s usually a lot of criticism of walkouts, especially from adults, but it’s a good first step to get kids involved in these types of social justice issues. The thing that matters is just getting involved. ”
Although Murphy was not at first responsible for organizing the walkout, he quickly stepped in to introduce guest speakers Representative Darrin Madison and Representative Ryan Clancy (both democratic socialists and from assembly districts 10 and 19 respectively). Murphy also reworked the length and logistics of the event.
“I wasn’t involved in planning it until about 48 hours before,” Murphy said. “[Someone else] was organizing it…but I didn’t really hear many other people talking about it. I didn’t really know if it was going to pick up, so I decided to act within my capacity. I’ve made some good friends in some higher up places, so I called them and invited them to show up, and that was like the day before [the walkout].”
Since the walkout was set to take place on the Friday before finals week, Murphy suggested that attendance would be higher if the walkout had a specific start and end time, instead of pulling students out of class for an entire afternoon.
“Originally, the plan was to walk out indefinitely, so during lunch we would walk out and then not come back for the rest of the day,” Murphy said. “I was not exactly partial to that plan because it was the week before finals. Everyone was worried about studying and on top of that it was really cold. Also, kids usually have tests on friday, and so I really advocated not to have it go the whole rest of the day. So we shortened the walkout, changed the distance we would walk, and I think the operation was salvaged.”
Murphy credits the high attendance to the blatant displays of violence the agency has displayed, along with many American’s belief that constitutional rights as well as checks and balances are being ignored by ICE.
“I think the week before the walkout we had just done another intervention with Venezuela, and then the killing of Reneé Good were catalysts,” Murphy said. “It’s also a freedom of speech thing. Like now, ICE is just violating the first amendment, as well as the right to privacy. I mean they’re not asking us to quarter the agents yet, but there’s still time. But it’s just executive overreach at this point.”
Aside from the specific incidents that occurred in winter of 2025 and early 2026, Murphy stressed the idea of historical literacy when discussing these types of issues.
“This isn’t new by any means. People often say things like ‘I can’t believe this would ever happen. This isn’t the America I grew up in.’ Unfortunately, that’s not true, this has been the case for so long throughout American history,” Murphy said. “I think it’s funny people make the comparison to the Gestapo and not of slave catchers in the 1800s or of the reporting going on in the 1920s in the first red scare. Basically, private militias or groups that just make people kidnapped or just disappear are not new. That’s exactly what ICE is, it’s an illegitimate weaponization of a pre-existing federal office. It’s essentially Donald Trump’s private white supremacist militia.”
Although Shorewood students have staged walkouts in the past, garnering student participation in current and controversial events sometimes poses a challenge. However, this option to participate indicates a privilege for many residents.
“In Shorewood, kids have the option to focus on school or extracurriculars,” Murphy said. “Overall, it’s a very clear path that’s laid out for them, and adding random things to the schedule or asking them to step out of something isn’t always easy. Caring and fighting for issues takes a lot of time and effort, but if you’re not from Shorewood, if you’re from MPS or you’re an immigrant, you have less of a choice. You have to join the fight because it matters to you. My main concern is that a lot of kids at Shorewood have the option to tune out. Clearly, there were 100 of us that chose not to do that, or at least [take a] step towards not doing that.”
As for the actual day of the protest, students assembled outside of the SHS theater building where both Murphy and junior Earl Wiler gave anti-ICE statements. The group, with signs provided by non-profit Voices de la Frontera, then marched to Shorewood Village Hall, where additional students gave students. There, Rep. Clancy and Rep. Madison also gave statements.
“It was really great that Diego was able to get the representatives to come because then they got a few local news people to come and report on the protest, which I think is really important in terms of getting the message out,” said Noah Mondragon Jones, senior and walkout attendee. “The response on some of those news reports was not the most positive, but I think the protest was overall pretty effective and those types of responses are just part of doing things like this.”
For Mondragon Jones, ICE has always been a troubling topic, but he decided to get involved after the killing of Reneé Good, which was filmed by several bystanders. In the video, Good begins to drive away and tell an ICE agent she was filming, “I’m not mad at you, dude,” to which the masked agent called her a “f**cking b*tch” and shot her in the head.
“That incident was very upsetting for me personally, and then if you add on all of the people of color that ICE is just violating, it is just a very upsetting situation,” Mondragon Jones said. “But in addition to doing a speech, my main contribution was driving Diego to get signs from [Voices de la Frontera]. They were nice enough to give us seven picket signs. Other people at the protest were handing out hand warmers and things like that, so it was overall very nice and very effective. I think some people made great points.”
Asha Lindvall, junior, didn’t personally walk out of school, but supported her classmates’ decisions to do so.
“Personally, as a woman of color, and with everything going on in the news and all the safety concerns, I didn’t feel safe protesting publicly,” Lindvall said. “We’ve seen how it can get violent with the aggression of the agents, and there has been a large amount of racial profiling as well, so I made the best decision I could for my own safety.”
Despite this, Lindvall voiced her support for those in attendance.
“I couldn’t be prouder of everyone who walked out of school, everyone who spoke, and everyone who organized,” Lindvall said. “This is such a personal and important issue, and I’m so happy we currently have the space to walkout, and not only that, but that the students were brave enough to.”