ASU students held a walkout protest on Tuesday.
Grace Monos
On Tuesday afternoon at Arizona State University’s campus in Tempe, chants of “FUCK ICE,” “FUCK TRUMP” and “SI SE PUEDE” filled the air. More than 60 students, many of whom had just come from class, sported backpacks and clutched skateboards, flyers and poster boards as they called on federal immigration officials to get out of Arizona.
Carrying a classic black JanSport backpack, Jose Villagrana was among the many young faces in the crowd. Villagrana is undocumented but has lived in Arizona since he was a young child and has always imagined becoming a citizen. Instead, the first-year ASU student is scared that the Trump administration could target him for deportation. He does not have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, which would protect him from being deported.
“I’m fearful to apply to become a citizen because of everything that’s happening,” Villagrana told Phoenix New Times while walking down Mill Avenue among the boisterous crowd. “I don’t know if they’re going to know me more because I’m trying to be a U.S. citizen.”
It’s possible Immigration and Customs Enforcement would know him because of his activism. In his first year at the country’s largest public university, Villagrana has become increasingly involved in progressive organizing groups, especially those related to education like Save Our Schools Arizona. On Tuesday, despite his fears, the electrical engineering major finished one of his classes and decided to join the group of students protesting the Trump administration.
The protest called for ASU students to walk out of their 4 p.m. classes to protest, although many who showed didn’t have class at that time anyway. The action was a part of the nationwide “Free America Walkout” held on the anniversary of President Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Students across the Valley, including many high schoolers, also walked out of class on Tuesday afternoon.
“It’s great to see this many students coming out and standing down against what ICE has been doing, not only in Phoenix, but all across the country right now,” said Kyah Antolos, an ASU sophomore studying psychology who is an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation Phoenix. “It feels really great to be a part of something bigger than myself.”
At Hayden Lawn, student organizers affiliated with PSL Phoenix spoke to the crowd. In a series of speeches, they criticized Trump, his deportation policies and ICE, U.S. actions in Iran, the administration’s support of Israel amid the war in Gaza and the “whole damn system,” as one student organizer put it to the crowd.
Many more students, ASU officials and a lone university police officer watched and listened to the crowd from a distance. One student, walking his electric scooter by the group, yelled, “ICE, ICE, baby!”
The group then marched in a mile-and-a-half loop around the northwest side of campus. Protesters were met with blaring car horns and thumbs up from passengers along University Drive.
Marilyn Reyes, a freshman studying biological sciences, joined the protest after class. As a Latino student, she’s worried her family “could be victim to this kind of thing,” calling the ICE activity she’s been seeing “definitely not right.”
Ean Meloch, a freshman studying music therapy, took a stronger stance. He was sporting a white tank top on which he’d haphazardly enscribed “FUCK ICE” in bold lettering. He joined the group after class to protest ICE “terrorizing the whole United States,” he told New Times.
“They’re trying to build a detention center in Glendale,” Meloch said. “We’re not going to stand for it.”
Here are other photos from the walkout.
