Over 100 Saratoga students participated in a student-led walkout against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Monday morning in response to recent national immigration enforcement events.
The walkout began during the tutorial period on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road and continued on Big Basin Way through the Saratoga Village before completing the loop back to the high school on Herriman Avenue at the end of the tutorial period.
The protest idea sparked after a series of ICE-related incidents in Minneapolis. On Friday, thousands of students across the country walked out, including at local schools like Palo Alto High School and San Ramon Valley High School.
Students brought handmade signs emphasizing the importance of immigrants’ contributions to the nation and denouncing ICE.
During the march, they held up posters and chanted slogans like “Ice out!” and “ICE, ICE, go away, from Minneapolis to the Bay,” as they walked the distance of around 1.5 miles.
Passersby voiced their support by cheering as the group of students passed, while people driving by honked in support, drawing attention from the Saratoga community.
Seniors Nila Venkataratnam and Anagha Vitaldevara, who helped organize the walkout, said they felt empowered by the unity of students who came together to protest.
“I didn’t really know what to expect, especially because we only advertised on Instagram and by word of mouth, and we only made the post yesterday,” Venkataratnam said. “To see that so many people responded so quickly and were eager to join us on our walk of almost an hour was super cool. It’s important for students to be able to use their First Amendment rights and free speech to raise awareness, because even though many of us can’t vote, there are so many ways for us to [have an] impact.”
Other students, like junior Anaya Shah, joined the walkout to support people in the local community.
“I think it’s important to protest,” Shah said. “Especially where we live, there are a lot of families that immigrated here, and a lot of us are from families of immigrants.”
Senior Patrick Keogh was heartened by the large turnout and the amount of support that was shown.
“It was really powerful,” Keogh said. “I never considered this school to be super active politically. We’ve always had people who were very active, but that was a small proportion of our school. It made me feel a lot better about the future of our democracy, because it made me realize that there are a lot of people who care and thought this was important.”
