Student Walkouts from 1968 to 2025: What History Says About Their Impact

Protesters gathered outside their classrooms in early February as nearly 12,500 students from Los Angeles Unified School District joined thousands more across Houston, Portland, and North Texas in one of the most spread-across-multiple-cities youth-led protest movements in recent American history. They weren’t protesting a distant policy debate—they were responding to two deaths in Minneapolis that hit close to home for immigrant communities nationwide.

The catalyst was stark: federal immigration officers had killed two people in separate incidents within weeks. Renée Good, a 37-year-old American citizen and mother of three, was shot through her windshield as she backed away from ICE agents on January 7. Seventeen days later, Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse at a VA hospital, was shot multiple times by Border Patrol agents in a different Minneapolis neighborhood.

Kids as young as eleven left their science and math classes, made signs reading “Being human isn’t criminal” and “Hot people melt ICE,” and marched to city halls and public squares.

By comparing these walkouts to past protests—from the 1968 Chicano Blowouts to the 2018 Parkland protests—we can understand what makes student activism succeed or fail.

The Scope of the Walkouts

In Los Angeles alone, students from more than 85 schools walked out during the week of January 30, with the biggest surge on Friday, February 6. This was the largest organized student protest by number of schools in the city since 2006, when nearly 40,000 students protested proposed federal immigration legislation.

Isaac, a seventh grader from Olive Vista Middle School in Sylmar, explained his motivation: “My family members are from Mexico and I’ve been worried about what could happen if they’re detained.” He described living with constant fear every time his parents went to work. The walkout, he said, felt “like breaking out of some sort of chamber.”

In Houston, hundreds of students at Cypress Falls High School walked out around midday and marched nearly three miles through city streets. They carried Mexican flags and signs reading “Arrest without due process is a concentration camp” and “I am skipping a lesson to teach you one.” The walkout happened despite explicit warnings from district leadership that students would be marked absent and face potential discipline.

A fire alarm went off about ninety seconds after the scheduled walkout began. School officials blamed it on a student vaping incident, but the timing raised questions about whether it was deliberately triggered to provide cover for students leaving campus.

Once outside, parents and community members formed an impromptu escort along the roadside, protecting marchers from traffic. Most passing drivers honked in support.

Portland’s demonstration had a different character. The Latino Student Union at David Douglas High School—where more than a third of students identify as Latino—organized the action. About 200-300 students marched to Mill City Park with adult community members and a school board member offering safety support.

One student named Valeria shared her brother’s story: “He grew up here, he played football here, he got his job here, he started to create a family here. But because he came here illegally, they say—I was there the day he got detained… and all I asked was why?”

The coordination across cities and states suggests organizing that crossed district lines. The timing aligned with what organizers called a “National Shutdown” on January 30, where immigrant rights advocates urged people to walk out of school, stay home from work, and avoid spending money.

Students likely used Instagram, TikTok, and encrypted messaging apps to organize across traditional boundaries—a change in tactics from the Spanish-language radio that coordinated the 2006 walkouts.

The Minneapolis Catalyst

On January 7, Renée Good had dropped her six-year-old son at school when she encountered ICE agents doing immigration enforcement near a dual-language elementary school. She remained in her Honda Pilot SUV. Witnesses reported receiving conflicting instructions from different agents—some ordering her to drive away while others shouting at her to exit the vehicle.

Good shifted into reverse and began backing away. ICE officer Jonathan Ross drew his firearm and fired three shots through her windshield in less than one second. The bullets struck her in the head, chest, and forearm.

She was denied immediate medical attention for approximately eight minutes while federal agents remained at the scene. She died at the hospital.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Good had “attacked” ICE agents and “attempted to run them over,” describing it as “an act of domestic terrorism.” But multiple video analyses contradicted this. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the DHS narrative “bullshit,” noting that when someone’s backing up and trying to leave, “that’s not an act of violence. That’s trying to leave the situation.”

Seventeen days later, Alex Pretti was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents near 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue. According to witnesses, federal agents were trying to enter a doughnut shop to pursue someone. When Pretti, who was across the street, began directing traffic to help pedestrians, agents opened fire. A physician who tried to help stated in court filings that agents appeared to be “counting bullet holes rather than providing first aid.”

These deaths occurred during Operation Metro Surge, which DHS had announced in December 2025 as a concentrated enforcement effort in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. The operation expanded dramatically on January 6 to what officials called “the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out,” deploying approximately 2,000 ICE officers and 1,000 Border Patrol officers to the region. Between December 1 and early February, this surge resulted in at least 4,000 arrests in Minnesota.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison suggested the operation was potentially punitive—retaliation for the state’s refusal to cooperate with ICE. The deaths of Good and Pretti, occurring within weeks in this context, created a catalyst that resonated with student communities nationwide.

Student Leaders and Coalition Building

The walkouts were primarily student-led rather than centrally organized by adult advocacy groups, though they benefited from support networks.

In Los Angeles, the organizing emerged from a constellation of student organizers across dozens of schools who communicated through social media rather than traditional hierarchies. One student organizer, referred to only as M, deliberately organized a lunchtime announcement about the walkout: “If you’d like to join, please come over here and if you have any questions, ask me.” School administrators pulled M out of class for more than an hour to discuss the walkout.

Portland’s structure was more formal, rooted in the school-based Latino Student Union. Their decision to lead the walkout represented a deliberate choice by Latino youth to organize around issues directly affecting their communities. A school board member joined the march holding a sign reading “people are not illegal,” offering validation while keeping the organizing student-initiated.

The nationwide coordination appeared to involve a network approach rather than a single central body. According to the Museum of Protest analysis, the broader coalition supporting these actions included over a thousand endorsing organizations—labor unions, faith organizations, immigrant rights groups, racial justice organizations, student associations, and grassroots community groups. This ranged from explicitly left-aligned organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America to more mainstream progressive groups including Indivisible chapters, the ACLU, and local tenant unions.

The intergenerational aspect matters here. One parent in Los Angeles had herself participated in immigrant rights walkouts as a high school student in 2006. She described being “floored” by her daughter’s participation: “It inspires me and gives me that little bit of hope… Maybe we can make a change.” This suggests the walkouts weren’t the first student activism around immigration in these communities but a continuation across a generation.

Tactical Execution

The tactical execution varied by location but followed a consistent pattern: coordinated mass departure during instructional time, march to a symbolic public location, return or dispersal.

Los Angeles students began leaving around 10:45 a.m. during nutrition periods, meeting at the Highland Park train station and taking the A Line downtown to converge on City Hall. The choice was deliberately symbolic—placing pressure on municipal officials and creating a visible demonstration in the media-saturated downtown environment. Hundreds from different schools gathered with unified messaging: “ICE out,” “Education Not Deportation,” “Being human isn’t criminal.”

The signage across all locations reflected coordination around core messages. Students carried signs reading “Immigrants make America great,” “Being brown is not something you should be worried about,” “Immigrants don’t shoot up schools,” and “I like ice on my wrist, not my street.” The use of Mexican flags was ubiquitous—both an explicit statement of ethnic solidarity and a visual marker connecting the demonstrations to the broader immigrant rights movement’s historical symbolism.

The timing was carefully planned. Most walkouts occurred during school hours—either during lunch periods or at times when students could claim emergency procedures.

By disrupting the school day itself, students forced institutions to reckon with the protest as an immediate operational problem rather than a separate after-school event. As one First Amendment analyst noted, “There may be nothing more disruptive than leaving school entirely.”

When Authorities Push Back

Schools and officials responded quickly and revealed sharp disagreements between Republicans and Democrats about student political expression.

School districts issued near-identical statements affirming students’ First Amendment rights while warning of disciplinary consequences. Los Angeles Unified stated that students had “the right to exercise their freedom of speech” but were informed that “walkouts are not school-sponsored” and they’d be marked absent for missed classes. The district emphasized that “leaving campus during instructional time without permission is discouraged; that message is about safety and supervision, not suppressing speech.”

Austin Independent School District took a similar position. Superintendent Matias Segura stated that staff “cannot physically prevent a student from choosing to leave campus,” and departures would result in unexcused absences. District administrators and police remained with protesting students not to discourage participation but to “ensure the safety of our students in our community.”

This put school administrators in a difficult position: supporting student expression and safety while staying neutral and not appearing to endorse political activism.

At the state level, the response was far more aggressive.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott argued that “the Supreme Court has been clear about free speech of students, and that free speech of students does not include leaving the school to go protest. And so, by Supreme Court precedent, what they did by leaving school is not protected speech.” Constitutional scholars contested this claim, noting that while the Supreme Court’s 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines decision established that schools can only intervene when student actions cause “substantial disruption,” the meaning of that term for walkouts where students leave campus entirely remains unclear legal ground.

The Texas Education Agency went further. On February 3, the TEA released guidance stating that students who walked out must be marked absent and that “schools risk losing daily attendance funding if they allow or encourage students to walk out.” More severe: “teachers that facilitate walk outs will be subject to investigation and sanction including licensure revocation” and “school systems that facilitate walkouts will be subject to investigation and sanction, including either the appointment of a monitor, conservator or board of managers.”

This guidance threatened both individual educators’ careers and district autonomy, making schools afraid to accommodate student expression.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a separate investigatory demand on Austin ISD, requesting internal communications about the walkout, district policies on students leaving campus, and security protocols. Paxton argued that “district staff helped students leave campus in some cases,” though Austin ISD disputed this, stating their role was limited to ensuring student safety. The investigation appeared politically motivated—Paxton was engaged in a tight Republican primary race for U.S. Senate and seeking to distinguish himself through aggressive opposition to activist school districts.

Maryland Republican Representative Andy Harris took to social media arguing that “the federal government should de-fund any high school that condones this in any way,” extending the threat of federal funding loss to schools that appeared to accept student activism.

Four Key Precedents

The 1968 Chicano Blowouts

The most similar past example to the 2025 walkouts is the 1968 East Los Angeles Chicano Blowouts. From March 1 to March 8, 1968, over 15,000 high school students walked out of seven schools to protest unequal educational conditions and the lack of Chicano teachers and bilingual curricula.

At Wilson High School, which initiated the walkouts, the graduation rate was only 50 percent. Chicano students faced overcrowded classrooms, outdated textbooks, lack of academic counseling, and widespread discouragement from pursuing college.

The walkouts were carefully coordinated with prepared signs, organized chants, and a public list of demands presented to the LA Board of Education. When authorities called in police to block protests, it escalated tensions and drew greater media attention rather than suppressing the movement. By week’s end, an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 students had walked out across seven campuses.

The response included both accommodation and punishment. On March 31, thirteen organizers were arrested on felony conspiracy charges, becoming known as the “Eastside 13.” Teacher Sal Castro, instrumental in organizing, was held the longest and lost his teaching position.

But public pressure—including support from Senator Robert Kennedy and Cesar Chavez—eventually led to most organizers’ release. After months of sit-ins at the Board of Education office, Castro was reinstated.

The Educational Issues Coordinating Committee presented 39 demands including curriculum changes, bilingual education, and hiring of Mexican-American administrators. The Board claimed they lacked funding for many reforms but did eventually make commitments to curriculum change and staff hiring.

The Blowouts demonstrated that student activism around justice could be organized and sustained despite opposition. When arrested, students and allies generated sufficient public pressure to reverse punitive actions.

The walkouts were successful in bringing about some change, though not all demands were met. And they established a precedent within Latino communities in Los Angeles for youth-led activism around immigrant and educational justice—a tradition that influenced the 2025 walkouts.

The 2006 Immigrant Rights Mega-Marches

In 2006, millions mobilized against H.R. 4437, legislation that would have criminalized undocumented immigrants and those who aided them. On March 27, nearly 40,000 students from Southern California walked out to protest the bill, with thousands converging on LA City Hall.

Those 2006 walkouts demonstrated coordination on a massive scale, with Spanish-language radio and television as the largest media component. Radio personality “El Piolín” on 101.9 KSCA-FM spent days promoting the march and educating audiences about the bill. This media attention turned into organized protests, with walkouts spreading across Southern California and students marching onto multiple freeways.

LAUSD Superintendent Roy Romer attempted to prevent the walkouts through campus lockdowns after more than 24,000 students in 52 schools walked out on Monday, March 27. Despite these efforts, students prevailed, and the walkouts were widely celebrated as a demonstration of immigrant political power and youth agency.

The walkouts contributed to stopping H.R. 4437, though the bill failed for several reasons including sustained advocacy and Senate action on alternatives. As one student from LA High School noted in 2006, “Nearly all of us are immigrants,” articulating the direct personal stakes.

The 2018 March for Our Lives

Following the Parkland shooting on February 14, 2018, students organized a coordinated national walkout on March 14 that involved more than one million young people walking out across the United States. The tactical structure mirrored the 2025 immigration walkouts: a specific, time-limited walkout (17 minutes, one minute for each Parkland victim), nationwide coordination, and students accepting disciplinary consequences.

The movement successfully shifted national discourse around gun violence, became a significant political force in the 2018 and 2020 elections, and contributed to passage of more than 250 gun control laws at the state level, including the first significant federal gun legislation in 30 years—the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Youth voter turnout reached record levels, with young people credited as “the difference-maker in key states.”

But the movement also faced limitations. Despite these policy wins, gun violence continued to increase, becoming “the number one killer of children in our country” in both 2022 and 2023. This suggests that student organizing, while influential in shifting policy and political outcomes, works within systems that limit transformation around enforcement, implementation, and the complex causes of social problems.

Fridays for Future Climate Strikes

The ongoing Fridays for Future movement, initiated by 15-year-old Greta Thunberg in August 2018, provides a model of sustained student activism. Thunberg began striking every school day outside Swedish Parliament, then established a weekly rhythm of striking on Fridays. This generated a global movement with millions participating in school strikes worldwide.

The climate strike movement demonstrated the power of visual consistency, regular participation, and clear articulation of scientific authority in sustaining media attention and political pressure over time. However, it’s also revealed limitations in translating youth activism into immediate policy change at the pace climate scientists deem necessary. The movement’s continued organizing years after initial walkouts suggests that some student causes generate sufficient traction to sustain repeated action, while others may experience decline in participation and media attention.

Students’ Legal Rights

The legal framework governing student expression is shaped primarily by the Supreme Court’s 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines decision. Students who wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War were suspended. The Court ruled 7-2 that “neither students nor teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

The Court established the “substantial disruption” rule—school officials can’t prohibit student speech based merely on suspicion it might cause disruption but must demonstrate it would “materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school.”

But what happens when students walk through those gates and then walk back out? There may be nothing more disruptive than leaving school entirely.

Schools’ responses must be fair regardless of politics—they can’t discipline students differently based on the political message of their protest. Rather, schools must apply consistent discipline for students who leave campus without authorization, regardless of whether they’re leaving to protest or skip class for other reasons. Some courts have suggested schools may have broader authority to regulate off-campus speech, but the extent this applies to walkouts during school hours remains unclear legal ground.

Texas Attorney General Paxton’s assertion that walkouts are “not protected speech” appears to overstate the legal consensus. Major civil rights organizations and most First Amendment scholars contend that students retain substantial speech protections even for on-campus activism.

Assessing Effectiveness

Media Coverage and Public Visibility

The walkouts received extensive coverage across local, national, and international outlets. National media including ABC News, NBC News, Fox News, and Education Week covered the demonstrations extensively. The visual spectacle of thousands of students marching with Mexican flags and clear messaging generated ample footage for broadcast and social media.

Education Week’s analysis noted that the walkouts “put school and district administrators in the center of heated national political battles, logistical challenges, and broader concerns about how to respect students’ First Amendment rights,” indicating the demonstrations forced attention to the issues.

The media framing, however, varied significantly by outlet. Conservative outlets emphasized school disruption and the illegality of student absences. Progressive outlets emphasized student agency and constitutional rights. This split between Republican and Democratic outlets matches historical patterns in protest coverage, which significantly affects public perception and support for movements.

Institutional Responses

Immediate responses were primarily disciplinary rather than policy-accommodating, with notable variation across states. In Texas, explicit threats regarding funding loss and state takeovers represented an escalated response compared to historical precedents. States hadn’t typically threatened specific financial sanctions for districts that failed to prevent student political activism.

However, evidence that these threats were carried out remains limited. Districts including Austin ISD continued operating with existing governance structures, suggesting the threats may have been designed as deterrents rather than executed consequences. The impact on future student activism remained uncertain, though they likely made schools afraid to provide explicit safety accommodations.

At the local level, some municipal governments responded more sympathetically. In Los Angeles, city officials issued statements supporting students’ expression rights, and Mayor Karen Bass’s office met with student representatives. Portland officials similarly acknowledged the walkouts without explicit opposition, and the city council had recently strengthened sanctuary city status in response to increased federal enforcement. These municipal-level responses suggested variability in official receptiveness depending on whether elected officials faced primarily progressive constituent bases.

Policy Change and Long-Term Impact

Evidence regarding whether the walkouts shifted public opinion on immigration policy or ICE enforcement remains preliminary. One notable indicator is that the deaths of Good and Pretti “captured nationwide attention,” suggesting the walkouts may have amplified these cases’ political visibility. However, reliable polls on public opinion shifts specifically attributable to the demonstrations weren’t available.

The stated goals—”ending ICE operations,” “stopping immigration raids that separate families,” and “demanding ICE be abolished entirely”—represented ambitious, big-picture demands. Research on the 3.5 percent rule of political change suggests that sustained nonviolent activism involving at least 3.5 percent of the population has a strong historical record of achieving major political change, with nonviolent protests twice as likely to succeed as violent ones. Whether the walkouts, involving thousands of students across multiple states, approached this threshold remained unclear.

On February 4, border czar Tom Homan announced that 700 federal immigration enforcement personnel would be “drawn down” from Minnesota, reducing the federal presence but not eliminating it. Whether this partial withdrawal resulted from the walkouts, legal challenges, or other political pressures is difficult to determine.

Ideas for Amplifying Impact

The following are brainstorming ideas based on what’s worked before and movement strategy research. These are suggestions for consideration, not endorsements of any particular approach.

Establish Regional Student Networks for Sustained Action

Rather than single one-time walkouts, establish ongoing regional student networks that coordinate monthly or quarterly sustained actions—in-school demonstrations, campus-based education sessions, and escalating tactics that maintain pressure between walkouts.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights Movement developed regional student networks that coordinated sit-ins across the South, with training in nonviolent resistance and sustained campaigns. Fridays for Future has similarly maintained momentum through a weekly participation model.

Single walkouts generate media attention but then dissipate, allowing opponents to frame the issue as momentary disruption. Sustained regional networks would keep the issue before school boards, state officials, and the public while building organizing infrastructure and deepening participant commitment.

Obstacles exist. Sustaining student participation across multiple actions faces academic demands, competing priorities, and burnout. Teachers and administrators may increase surveillance and preemptive discipline of organizers. Building infrastructure requires resources, training, and coordination that may exceed what student organizers can provide without adult support.

Connect School Activism to Direct Community Defense

Develop formal partnerships between student walkout organizers and immigrant rights legal organizations to provide know-your-rights trainings at schools, legal observers at ICE enforcement sites, and immediate legal support for students and their families. Frame school-based activism as part of a broader network to protect the community rather than isolated protest.

The Civil Rights Movement connected student sit-ins to broader legal strategies, with lawyers on standby to bail out arrested students. More recently, immigrant rights coalitions have developed rapid-response teams that monitor ICE enforcement and provide legal presence.

Students facing ICE enforcement concerns in their families would see direct connection between their activism and support mechanisms. This would strengthen movement infrastructure while demonstrating to the broader community that student activism is connected to real support systems.

Obstacles exist. Legal organizations have limited resources and may not provide universal coverage. Some communities lack legal service organizations with capacity for rapid response. School administrators may view legal observers and know-your-rights trainings as encouraging student lawbreaking.

Develop Cross-Generational Strategy Connecting to Labor Organizing

Establish formal alliances between student walkout organizers and labor unions, particularly those representing school workers and workers in sectors heavily affected by immigration enforcement. Coordinate actions where teachers and students walk out together, and explore strategies for labor-student joint organizing.

The farmworkers’ movement under Cesar Chavez explicitly connected student activism and youth to labor organizing and boycotts. The coalition surrounding the January 30 “National Shutdown” explicitly included labor unions, with striking workers participating in the broader shutdown.

Labor unions bring resources, media platforms, legal expertise, and organizing capacity that student-only movements often lack. Joint actions demonstrate broader popular support and make the issue more difficult for authorities to dismiss as youth radicalism.

Obstacles exist. Labor unions sometimes have internal rules and may prioritize union-specific issues over student concerns. Some workers lack strike protection and may face serious employment consequences. Coordination across different institutions requires significant organizing capacity and trust-building.

Leverage Social Media for Real-Time Coordination

Develop sophisticated social media strategy using Instagram, TikTok, and encrypted messaging platforms to provide real-time coordination of actions, distribute training videos on direct action tactics and legal rights, create viral content that shapes public narrative, and enable distributed actions across different locations on coordinated dates.

March for Our Lives in 2018 utilized social media extensively to coordinate national participation. Black Lives Matter used hashtags and social media to coordinate protests and establish movement identity.

Student organizers already use and trust these platforms. Social media enables rapid scaling of actions across geography, reaching students who lack pre-existing organizational infrastructure. TikTok in particular reaches young people across class, race, and geographic lines. Viral content can shift broader public discourse and generate pressure on elected officials responsive to constituent digital engagement.

Obstacles exist. Social media platforms are monitored by authorities and can be used for surveillance of organizers. Algorithm changes can suddenly reduce visibility of protest content. Social media can generate activism without sustained organizing. Misinformation spreads rapidly and can undermine movement messaging.

Target Local and State Officials Rather Than Federal Targets

Shift organizing strategy from federal demands (abolishing ICE) to concrete local policy changes: sanctuary city ordinances prohibiting police cooperation with ICE, state legislation restricting ICE access to schools and courthouses, local funding for immigrant legal services, school district policies protecting undocumented students. Create scorecards rating local officials on immigration policy and use in election campaigns.

The Blowouts in 1968 presented 39 specific demands to the LA Board of Education, some of which were eventually implemented. The 2006 immigrant rights movement successfully pressured numerous cities and states to pass sanctuary ordinances. Gun safety advocates following March for Our Lives focused on state-level legislation, achieving passage of 250 gun laws at the state level.

Local elected officials are more responsive to constituent pressure, particularly if voters or potential voters are organized. State governments have direct authority over education policy and can pass meaningful restrictions on ICE. Concrete, achievable demands are more likely to generate momentum and political support than abstract calls for abolition. Electoral integration allows student activists to maintain leverage over officials through threat of electoral opposition.

Obstacles exist. Local victories may be temporary or subject to reversal with changes in political leadership. Focusing on local issues may seem to ignore broader issues around immigration policy. Some activists may view work within electoral systems as watering down of more radical demands to abolish ICE.

Create Intergenerational Organizing Structures

Identify and activate adults who participated in previous student movements—1960s civil rights, 1968 Chicano Blowouts, 2006 immigration marches—as mentors, advisors, and co-organizers for 2025 student movements. Develop explicit intergenerational dialogue about movement strategy, historical lessons, and contemporary opportunities.

The Blowouts in 1968 connected to ongoing civil rights organizing traditions and benefited from adult advisors like teacher Sal Castro. The Civil Rights Movement explicitly integrated youth with adult organizers from churches, NAACP chapters, and community organizations.

Experienced organizers bring knowledge of tactics that worked and failed, existing organizational relationships, and sustained commitment that can help young organizers avoid recreating previous mistakes. Intergenerational organizing builds movement continuity and demonstrates that immigration justice is a multigenerational commitment. Adult allies can provide material resources, legal support, and access that youth organizers may lack.

Obstacles exist. Generational differences in values and strategy can create conflict. Some young organizers may resist what they perceive as co-optation or paternalism from adult advisors. Previous generation movement participants may not be easily accessible or willing to participate.

Build Coalitions Across Different Movements

Explicitly frame immigration enforcement as part of broader systems of state violence and inequity affecting Black communities (policing, incarceration), Indigenous communities (border violence, land extraction), and working-class communities of all backgrounds. Build coalitions with Black Lives Matter, Indigenous rights, climate justice, and labor movements around a shared understanding of government power and repression.

The 1960s Civil Rights and Black Power movements connected racial justice to anti-imperialism and economic justice. The modern immigrants’ rights movement has increasingly connected to racial justice after George Floyd’s murder and the role of immigration enforcement in communities of color.

Immigration enforcement disproportionately affects communities of color and is deeply connected to racist systems of state control. Border militarization takes land from Indigenous communities. ICE raids target workers, affecting labor movements. This framing expands the coalition base beyond immigrant communities to multiracial, cross-class movements. It also articulates analysis showing that opposing ICE is part of broader opposition to state violence.

Obstacles exist. This organizing is complex and requires significant capacity to bridge different movements’ priorities and analyses. Some organizations may be unwilling to take positions on issues outside their stated focus. This messaging can become diluted or complicated and harder to communicate clearly. Different movements may have different ideas about how to protest.

What’s Next

Evidence suggests student walkouts are likely to continue in subsequent weeks and months, particularly given sustained media coverage and ongoing federal immigration enforcement operations. Some districts have already experienced multiple rounds of walkouts, and student organizers in various cities have begun discussing ongoing action plans.

In Portland, students received assurance from district officials that they wouldn’t be punished for participation, potentially creating a model other districts might emulate. However, in Texas, the state’s explicit threats regarding funding loss and investigations appear to have created a deterrent effect, though evidence of implementation remains limited.

The future of student activism will be shaped by federal immigration enforcement. Operation Metro Surge, which triggered the walkouts through the deaths of Good and Pretti, deployed thousands of officers to Minneapolis. On February 4, border czar Tom Homan announced that 700 federal personnel would be “drawn down” from Minnesota, reducing but not eliminating the federal presence. This partial withdrawal may affect the urgency driving student action.

Several scenarios seem possible. Continued organizing could contribute to policy changes including sanctuary city/state ordinances in additional jurisdictions, restrictions on ICE access to schools, and potentially some reduction in federal enforcement operations. The combination of student organizing with legal challenges to federal enforcement—such as the federal judge’s finding that ICE had violated 96 court orders in Minnesota as of January 28—might create sustained pressure where policy makers feel compelled to restrict immigration enforcement.

Alternatively, state-level threats and disciplinary actions could significantly reduce participation in future walkouts, shifting activism to less visible forms. Students with immigration enforcement concerns or living in households with documented immigration violations may become more cautious about public protests given the surveillance and enforcement environment. The Texas Education Agency’s threats, while not yet fully implemented, may have chilling effects on both student participation and school administrator accommodation of student expression.

A third scenario involves escalation of tactics, with sustained student activism leading to more confrontational direct action, occupation of school board offices, or civil disobedience that explicitly accepts consequences. Historical precedent suggests that when initial tactics fail to achieve policy change, movements sometimes escalate to more disruptive or legally risky tactics. The Blowouts in 1968 eventually led to 13 arrests and the firing of teacher Sal Castro, generating further cycles of protest demanding his reinstatement. If student demands aren’t met through walkouts, similar escalation might occur.

The walkouts represent a significant moment in American youth activism, continuing a tradition stretching back through the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War era to the present. Whether these walkouts achieve their stated policy goals—ending ICE operations and protecting immigrant communities—will depend on students’ ability to keep organizing, broader political shifts in immigration policy, success of legal challenges to federal enforcement, and the capacity of student movements to build power with allied constituencies including labor, faith organizations, and immigrant rights groups.

The nationwide student walkouts represent both a continuation of a long American tradition of youth political engagement and a distinctive contemporary moment shaped by digital communication, changing population, and more aggressive immigration enforcement. Nearly 12,500 students from Los Angeles Unified alone, along with thousands more across Houston, Portland, North Texas, and other communities, withdrew from school to protest federal immigration enforcement operations that had killed two people in Minneapolis and displaced countless families through detention and deportation.

These young people, some as young as eleven, deliberately accepted documented absences and potential suspensions to make visible their opposition to state violence against immigrants.

Historical analysis suggests that student walkouts are a tactic with a mixed record of success. The Blowouts in 1968 contributed to curricular changes and Latino student representation in LA schools, though arrests and firings of organizers demonstrated that movements face real costs. The 2006 immigrant rights walkouts contributed to defeating H.R. 4437. March for Our Lives in 2018 generated policy change at the state level and contributed to record youth voter turnout, though gun violence has paradoxically increased even as gun control policies expanded. This suggests that student activism can shift political discourse, influence elections, and contribute to policy changes, but works within systems that limit transformation.

The walkouts face particular legal and political headwinds. The Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement stance, reflected in Operation Metro Surge and the direct description of opposing immigration enforcement as support for illegality, creates a hostile political environment for immigrant rights activism. State-level threats in Texas regarding funding loss and investigations into schools that “facilitate” walkouts represent an escalated response compared to historical precedents, potentially creating reasons that discourage both students and educators from engaging in activism. The constitutional status of school walkouts remains somewhat unsettled, with state officials claiming walkouts aren’t protected speech despite contrary statements from the ACLU and most First Amendment scholars.

Yet the walkouts also demonstrate enduring strengths of student activism as a tactic. Young people have a special credibility that older activists sometimes lack—the fact that children are withdrawing from education to protest injustice generates visceral media attention. Students operate outside formal power structures and are therefore sometimes able to experiment with tactics that established organizations would avoid. The intergenerational participation, with adults supporting student organizers and some parents having themselves participated in previous movements, suggests that student activism can build bridges to longer-term movements. The diverse coalition supporting the walkouts—immigrant rights organizations, faith groups, labor unions, and civil liberties organizations—demonstrates that student activism can spark broader alliances.

The effectiveness of the walkouts will depend on whether they represent a single moment of youth engagement or the beginning of sustained organizing for immigration justice. Historical precedent suggests that movements that achieve policy change do so through sustained pressure rather than single actions. Organizers will face the task of maintaining momentum despite academic demands, potential disciplinary consequences, and a political environment hostile to their demands. For policymakers and school administrators, navigating competing commitments to respecting student constitutional rights, maintaining school operations, and avoiding appearing to either facilitate or suppress political expression will remain difficult.

The walkouts—with their explicit demands for ending ICE operations, stopping family separation, and establishing sanctuary policies—represent young people asserting that immigration policy isn’t a distant governmental concern but a matter of immediate personal urgency affecting their families, schools, and communities. Whether these young activists successfully turn their protest and disruption of schools into policy change will be an important question for the next months and years of immigrant rights organizing in the United States.

This article analyzes protest and activism tactics for educational purposes. We aim to contribute to effective and ethical efforts across the political spectrum, and we present diverse viewpoints and ideas without endorsement.