Meet the Georgia high schoolers organizing walkouts, protests against ICE
The 15-year-olds who organized an after-school, anti-ICE protest at Snellville’s Brookwood High on Wednesday afternoon had no idea that hundreds of their classmates would attend.
Actually, when sophomore Nusaibah Khan posted a flyer about their plan on Instagram about protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity, she didn’t think anyone at all would see it. She was surprised when it immediately got hundreds of views.
“I was like, ‘Oh, we actually have to do this,’” she said. “I was hoping it would do something, but I didn’t really expect it.”
But it makes sense that students at her school would want to join the thousands of young people across Georgia who have already participated in walkouts and rallies to protest immigration crackdowns under President Donald Trump’s administration. Since two U.S. citizens were shot and killed this month by federal agents in Minneapolis, students have felt the need to do something.
That’s how less than a week after Nusaibah and her friends shared the flyer, an estimated 300 students marched 2 miles from the school to a spot on Scenic Highway. They waved flags from Mexico, Honduras and the Philippines, chanting as they went: “G! O! ICE has got to go!” And they talked about the type of people they want to be in the face of what they view as threats to their friends, families and communities.
“All the families that are going through this right now don’t deserve this,” said Sophia De La Cruz Toblete, another sophomore who helped organize Brookwood High’s protest. “Nobody deserves this, to be detained or to be killed for no reason, because no human is illegal.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviewed more than a dozen teens in Georgia about what motivated them to organize protests. They expressed anger, disgust, confusion and determination. Some of them have been watching the situation unfold since Trump won office for the second time on the promise that he’d execute mass deportations. Some are immigrants themselves, or the children of immigrants. Others said they have seen empty seats in their classrooms when students were too afraid of ICE activity near their campuses to go to school. They don’t understand how people can just carry on like nothing’s happening.
“To me, this is disrupting their fake peace,” said Braydan Harrison. The Dunwoody High sophomore and co-president of the school’s Young Democrats Club helped organize a walkout Jan. 23.
“I want these people to hear that you know what, no, ICE is not affecting you right now, but it is affecting so many people around you,” he said. “You should be angry about this, and you should be trying to do something about it.”
The students mobilized through social media, often seen by some parents and educators as a disruptive influence in the lives of young people.
For teenagers who are always on their phones, there’s no avoiding what’s happening. Kennedy Brantley, an 18-year-old senior at North Atlanta High, said she and her friends can’t escape social media videos showing violence or the detention of immigrants.
“Being able to go on TikTok and seeing someone beat up by ICE or seeing someone get shot by ICE, it’s just a fact,” she said. “It’s whenever I open my TikTok account.”
Like the students at Brookwood, North Atlanta High students made an Instagram account to advertise a walkout Friday.
“We woke up and there were hundreds and hundreds of notifications,” said Jayla Schultz, a sophomore at the school who’s working with Kennedy and others to organize the protest. “We realized very quickly it was something North Atlanta wanted to engage in.”
In some districts, organizing protests is proving more difficult. The Cobb County School District threatened to punish students who participate in walkouts Friday. The district went so far as to warn about “long-lasting impacts that could be taken into account by college admission offices and future employers.”
Lucy Barron, a senior at Lassiter High School in Marietta, said she felt like she had to speak up about the government’s immigration enforcement efforts. Despite the chilling effect the district’s message could have on some students, she still intended to walk out of class.
“I just feel like what’s going on in our country and what’s going on in Minnesota is far more important than the threats Cobb is making toward me,” she said.
Despite resistance in some cases, these students are reminding one another of moments in history when young people took a stand, like the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War protests. The walkouts and protests feel like something tangible Georgia students can do ― even though as teenagers, some of them are already emotionally exhausted.
“I’m tired of being taught that I live in a country that’s amazing and that people should go to and that it’s all about liberation and freedom, when in reality, it’s the exact opposite,” said Riyanah Bryant, a senior at North Atlanta High. “I truly hope that this country changes its ways and that people truly get to live stress-free and be liberated and have freedom.”
About the Author
Cassidy Alexander covers Georgia education issues for the AJC. She previously covered education for The Daytona Beach News-Journal, and was named Florida's Outstanding New Journalist of the Year.
