On January 20, 2026, students at Del Mar High School coordinated a walkout to protest recent actions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including reported raids throughout the Bay Area and across the country.
The walkout began after the first period and continued until approximately 2 p.m. Participants traveled on foot from Del Mar to downtown San Jose, stopping at San Jose State University, the Plaza de César Chávez, and concluding at San Jose City Hall.
During the demonstration, students chanted phrases directed at ICE and President Donald Trump, including “With no immigrants, there would be no America,” “No justice, no peace,” and “This is what democracy looks like.”
“We’ve been planning [the walkout] for almost a month,” says one of the walkout coordinators, “I think it was just last week that the whole stuff with Renee Good came out, and I was like, we gotta do it soon. We have got to [speak out] or it might, and will, get worse with ICE. There’s already been sightings of them here in San Jose.”
“It’s been bad for hella long, and recently, with the one girl they killed not that long ago, they’ve been going crazy, like in Minneapolis,” says another coordinator, “We gotta stand up, we gotta speak out, or there’s gonna be no one to speak out for us.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a federal law enforcement agency authorized by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which was created during the Cold War to strengthen national security.
But the power they have as law enforcement is supposed to be limited; they have different powers and rights compared to a local police officer or security guard.
According to federal law, ICE does not have the authority to detain a U.S. citizen. Individuals may be briefly stopped for questioning with probable cause, such as a warrant signed by a judge, but once citizenship is established, ICE agents are required to release them.
Undocumented individuals also have legal rights. Under U.S. Code Title 8, Section 1228, individuals have the right to an attorney before questioning and are given a period of time to seek judicial review.
However, students at Del Mar say that recent ICE actions show that agents have been exceeding their legal authority.
“It’ll only get worse,” says one protester, “If [ICE has] already murdered a woman – a white woman, a U.S. citizen, in front of her wife, I think it will only get worse from here on out.”
An estimated 10.5 to 14 million undocumented immigrants currently live in the United States. They make up approximately 5% of the U.S. workforce and play a major role in several industries, including construction, agriculture, and healthcare.
“They are trying to take hard workers from all over,” says another protester, “It’s personal, because my parents are undocumented. I think we should stand up for people like them, because they can’t. They are scared. We are doing this right now for them; for our families, for our neighbors, for everyone.”
Despite their immigration status, undocumented immigrants contribute billions of dollars to the U.S economy each year through federal, state, and local taxes.
At Del Mar High School, approximately 84% of students identify as part of a minority group, and 64% are considered financially disadvantaged.
“We are the people, we are also human too,” says a protester, “They are calling us aliens and criminals when we haven’t done a thing. We support communities, feed our families, have dinner at our tables, and have a roof over our heads, and they call us criminals.”
