Whitman students gathered in the bus loop in front of the school in a walkout on Jan. 20 to protest President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement operation. Originally planned for Jan. 16, the event was pushed to coincide with the nationwide Free America Walkout protest and the first anniversary of Trump’s second inauguration.

Students began convening at the start of fifth period, eventually forming a circle where students with a megaphone led chants and read speeches. The event lasted approximately 30 minutes, starting around 11:25 a.m. and ending at 11:55 a.m.

Administration and a security guard were on hand to ensure students’ safety, though they didn’t take any action during the walkout. 

On Jan. 7, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis after she partially blocked a road, allegedly obstructing ICE operations. The incident gained national media attention, sparking mass protests and raising questions among citizens about the governmental agency’s purpose and what it can legally do.

Since the incident, witnesses have filmed ICE harassing protestors with pepper spray and non-lethal munitions. A federal judge banned this practice on Jan. 16. 

Walkout organizer Delia Rees said Good’s shooting was another incident in a long string of ICE’s failures.

“I wasn’t super surprised because it felt like something that could easily happen under the current administration,” Rees said.

Organizers said they’d been wanting to coordinate a demonstration at Whitman against ICE’s actions since before the shooting, but Good’s death amplified their urgency. 

Rees, alongside senior Viraaj Raofield and juniors Aden Jacobs and Evan Schwartz, began reaching out to friends via a WhatsApp group chat to mobilize the student-led walkout. Members of the group chat told others to spread the message to their friends, and the organizers created an Instagram account called vikesagainstice to increase their outreach. The account followed Whitman students and posted information about the walkout.

When assembling the student speakers, Raofield said the team sought out immigrant students interested in sharing their experiences and asked them to write their speeches beforehand. In addition to six speeches delivered live, students read two speeches on behalf of others to protect the anonymity of at-risk students.

“The idea is that if ICE does see this walkout, they don’t have specific faces or names to target because the people who are most impacted by it aren’t directly visually involved,” Raofield said. 

The walkout organizers said the Trump administration is to blame for the brutality and cruelty of ICE’s actions throughout the year, including the racial profiling of naturalized citizens of Latino descent and those with accents. 

In Sept. 2025, the Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision that would have banned the use of certain factors during an arrest. The factors included race, speaking Spanish or accented English, being found at a location where undocumented immigrants are “known to gather” or working a specific job like construction. 

The unsigned order in Noem v. Vazquez Perdomo included a written concurrence by Justice Kavanaugh defending the order. Justice Sotomayor wrote a dissent signed by Justices Kagan and Jackson.

The coordinators originally expected between 150 and 250 students; however, frigid temperatures — as low as 24 degrees according to some estimates — lowered their expectations. 

Initial estimates from The Black & White put the attendance closer to 300 people. The crowd skewed toward upperclassmen, although members of all grades attended. 

A student from a Hispanic background who went to the walkout said they feared attending could cause something bad to happen to their parents, but it was ultimately a good experience that gave them hope. 

“I think the only way for things to change is if people speak up and students are recognized like this,” the student said. 

The walkout’s main objective, according to coordinators, was to condemn ICE’s actions and pressure Congress to cut some of the money allocated to the agency in the last year — a reported $75 billion. Organizers highlighted additions to ICE’s budget in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed on July 4, 2025, as well as the organization’s presence in American cities like Minneapolis and Chicago.

While noting that MCPS and the Montgomery County Council have mostly responded well to ICE activity in the area, Rees and other organizers said they wish Whitman and MCPS were doing more to provide support and information to immigrant students and families. 

“We’re hoping that [Whitman] will take more action to make people more aware of their rights,” Rees said. “They have these little ‘Know Your Rights’ cards at the front office, but no one goes there, and they’re really small, so you wouldn’t notice them.”

Organizers handed out pamphlets at the event containing information from the “Know Your Rights” cards, an account of the shooting of Renee Good, a list of chants and two demands for MCPS — that they make a statement saying they won’t cooperate with ICE and that they provide students with an education on their First Amendment right to assembly.

On its website, MCPS currently hosts a comprehensive library of resources for immigrants in the case of potential school ICE raids or outside encounters, including a printable “Know Your Rights” card available in 16 languages and a list of local organizations with specialized immigrant services.

The organizers argue that ICE activities’ impacts go further than ethnicity or nationality. They said it was important for people who aren’t part of groups frequently targeted by ICE to stand up for those in danger of persecution by going to these events.

“It’s targeting anyone who speaks out against what ICE is doing,” Raofield said. “As we saw with Renee Nicole Good, there are people who are citizens of the United States who are still getting hurt by this, getting killed because of it.” 

Students held up signs throughout the event, most of which were written in English with a few written in Spanish. “ICE melts under pressure,” one read. “We are here for those who can’t,” said another, which stood next to its Spanish translation: “Estamos aqui por los que no pueden.” 

Organizers led chants throughout the walkout like a call and response, saying “when fascists attack, we fight back” and “when it comes to ICE, we don’t play nice.” The list of chants, handed out to protestors, was bilingual and featured a chant in Spanish reading, “el pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido,” translated as “the people united will never be divided.” 

“My parents came here for the American dream,” student Luciana Leyton said to the crowd, holding a microphone. “But if this is the American dream — Jesus Christ let me wake up.”