Vallejo High School students walk out to protest ICE

VALLEJO – Around 200 students from Vallejo High School walked out of class and off campus on Friday afternoon in solidarity with a nationwide anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement strike that called for no school, no work, and no shopping. 

The students assembled at the Vallejo High School quad at 12:20 p.m., formed a line, and proceeded to leave campus by 12:25 p.m., according to Vallejo City Unified School District spokesperson Maral Papakhian. Papakhian said school principal Beyonka Marshall along with two vice principals and five site safety staff were with the students in the quad until they walked off campus; none of the students who walked off returned to school.

A Facebook video shows the students walking down Broadway into the area known as Vallejo’s Little Mexico. Students yelled “fuck ICE” while others held signs with phrases like “if ur an ice agent ur mom’s a ho.” Cars honked in support as they drove by. 

District Superintendent Rubén Aurelio said the district was aware of the possibility of a walkout because of messages circulating on social media.

On Thursday afternoon, Aurelio sent a message to staff that the school would operate as normal, but they would not impinge on the students’ right to protest.

“While we respect the First Amendment rights of our students and staff, we must balance these rights with the safety of our schools and limit disruptions to the learning process,” Aurelio wrote in a statement to staff. “To that end, we will work to ensure that any protest on school grounds remains peaceful and positive.”

Aurelio told staff that teachers weren’t permitted to participate in the protest, and any student leaving would be given an unexcused absence and have their parents notified. 

Aurelio added that teachers should not encourage the students to participate in the walk out, but they also shouldn’t attempt to stop the students from leaving if they do. 

The call for a nationwide general strike was started earlier this week by student organizations at the University of Minnesota, and word spread mostly through Instagram and TikTok. The nationwide strike was called to capitalize on the Jan. 23 city-wide strike held in Minneapolis, which involved over 50,000 people marching and hundreds of businesses closing to protest the sweeping immigration crackdowns being conducted by the 3,000 ICE agents deployed to the city.

Since the start of the new year, ICE agents in Minneapolis have shot and killed mother Renee Nicole Good and Veterans Affairs nurse Alex Pretti, who was trying to help a woman who had been pushed to the ground by ICE agents. According to The Guardian, eight people in the U.S. have been killed by ICE agents or have died in ICE custody in 2026. 

Over a hundred small businesses in the Bay Area shut down on Friday in solidarity with the strike. High school students in San Francisco, San Leandro, Berkeley, and Oakland high schools also walked out, along with college students at UC Berkeley and Stanford. American Canyon held a small protest on Highway 29, while U.S. representative Mike Thompson led a conference and march in Napa to demand accountability for ICE and call for the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

In Vallejo, nurses at Kaiser Permanente held a vigil for Pretti on Monday. On Friday, a handful of protestors boarded the San Francisco Bay Ferry to join in on the 1 p.m. march at Dolores Park, which is estimated to have attracted thousands of protestors.