Hundreds of Stockton high school students filled streets across the city Friday as part of a nationwide shutdown aimed at pressing officials to stop funding ICE and remove its agents from communities across the U.S.
From City Center in downtown Stockton to Hammer Lane in the north, at least 400 students from Lincoln, Edison and Franklin high schools flooded sidewalks for several hours Friday morning carrying signs blasting ICE, while leading chants against the agency’s abuses and President Donald Trump.
Stockton’s students joined thousands of other young people from schools across the country, from San Jose and Sacramento to San Antonio and Atlanta, who had planned walkouts Friday as part of the shutdown.
The nationwide action came in response to what the Trump administration has touted as the largest immigration operation ever unfolding in Minnesota, during which ICE agents have conducted warrantless searches, with some confrontations turning deadly.
At least three people have died at the hands of ICE over the last month: Renee Good, a mother of three, and VA nurse Alex Pretti were shot to death by ICE agents in separate instances earlier this month in Minneapolis, while 43-year-old father of two Keith Porter Jr. was shot and killed New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles by an off-duty ICE agent. Silverio Villegas Gonzalez was also shot to death by ICE in Chicago back in September.
The national protest also comes as Democrats and Republicans in the Senate head into negotiations over a bill that would continue funding the Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE.
Meanwhile, Northern California immigrant communities and advocates are still reeling from the October disappearance of about two dozen people after they were unexpectedly summoned to the city’s ICE field office off Fremont Street. After a pre-arranged tour of the office Thursday, Congressman Josh Harder, D-Tracy, described cells within the facility as barely large enough to hold a person, and said he was “met with a lot of nonanswers” from ICE staff.
In response to Stocktonia’s request for the names and current locations of people detained through ICE’s Stockton office, a spokesperson wrote, “ICE’s privacy policy does not allow for release of the personally identifiable information you are requesting.”
The spokesperson added, “ICE responds to official correspondence directly, not through reporters,” without clarifying what that meant.
Amid heightened fears of arrest, some immigrants could not shoulder the financial burden of joining protests like those that swept Stockton on Friday.
At an intersection on Charter Way, miles from Friday’s protests, a Mexican man set up his morning booth — freshly made sweet bread and cut up fruit still sitting in his small white pickup.
Many immigrants, like himself, cannot afford to step away for a day, he said.
“I understand that many are protesting,” the six-year Stockton resident said in Spanish. “But for people like us … We can’t do anything.”
Several students who joined Friday’s marches said they did so in hopes of protecting those who cannot protest.
“We need to make sure our families are supported, we need to make sure the communities that are getting actually (torn) apart from ICE are protected,” Lincoln student Aniquah Neisler said as she and her peers began what became a nearly five-mile march along Pacific Avenue, from Benjamin Holt Drive to San Joaquin Delta College and back up to Hammer Lane.
When asked why they decided to protest today, Lincoln student Marlee Valencia said ICE is “tearing families apart.”
“Illegal (immigrants) or not, it’s just violence, pure violence,” she said.
Other students joined the march on behalf of family members whom they fear ICE could target.
Edison student Bryan — who declined to share his last name — said he was marching downtown on behalf of his immigrant family members.
“There’s always going to be school,” Bryan said. “This is just one day.”
Idalia Marquez, a junior at Edison, said she marched to keep ICE out of Stockton homes.
“Doing this has a lot of meaning to me,” Marquez said as she and her peers weaved through the city’s residential neighborhoods. “My grandparents are immigrants. Yes, they have their papers, but nowadays, that doesn’t even matter.”
As Marquez spoke, a Latina woman watched from the first floor of an apartment near Poplar and Madison streets. With her toddler at her hip, the woman’s eyes turned teary.
“It’s great that they’re raising their voice,” she said, declining to give her name out of fear of being targeted because of her ethnicity. “I felt proud … it’s nice, what they’re doing.”
Marquez acknowledged that some might doubt students’ motives for leaving class to march.
But she and her peers shouldn’t be dismissed, Marquez said. “Yes, we’re students. Some might not take it seriously. But some of us do, and genuinely care and want to make a change.”
