As hundreds of students at Garrett Morgan High School flooded out of the building, they chanted “no hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” Despite the frigid temperatures Thursday, students waved homemade signs while marching around their school’s Detroit Avenue campus.
The walkout at Garrett Morgan was part of a district-wide protest organized by Cleveland high school students against the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis and across the country in the past few, including an agent who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good.
The anti-ICE protest was organized by students and the Cleveland Liberation Center, a local group for socialist activism. At least nine high schools on the East and West sides of the city participated, according to organizers.
Haley Torres, a junior at Garrett Morgan, held a megaphone and led chants as she and her peers marched. Torres told Signal Cleveland that she, along with the other students in her American government class, had researched past protests before writing the chants for their walkout.
“As our class, we pride ourselves on leadership and understanding when something is wrong, understanding when something is becoming a tyranny,” she said. “For me, personally, I come from a family of immigrants. I understand the struggle, and seeing people without basic human rights, without due process, it’s very heartbreaking.”
Students told Signal Cleveland they had seen videos of ICE actions that contributed to their decision to participate in the walkout. They joined students across the country who walked out from school this week in solidarity with Minneapolis.
“It’s just kind of devastating just to see all that kind of stuff happen here,” said Tiderion Thomas, a senior at Garrett Morgan. “Especially when America puts out this front to the world that, you know, we’re about freedom.”
Across the city, at the Cleveland School of the Arts, Rhionnan Ford helped organize her school’s walkout and protest in University Circle. She said part of her motivation was calling attention to the people that ICE has detained and how those actions can make immigrant communities in Cleveland and around the country feel less safe.
“It’s so important to me because a lot of people are ignoring the fact that family members are disappearing,” Ford said.
For some students, participating in the protest was personal and emotional. Catarina Hernandez, a student at the Cleveland School of the Arts, said she walked out of school not only to protest what she sees as ICE’s unconstitutional actions but also because, as a Hispanic person, she worries about the direction the country is going.
“I want a future where I don’t have to be worried about my people,” she said, tearing up a little. “I don’t want to see my people get taken away because of a man who’s abusing his power, to take away people who didn’t do anything wrong.”
