More than 200 high school students walked out of class on Tuesday morning and marched through downtown Redwood City, chanting for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to leave the Bay Area as word spread of fresh arrests happening across San Mateo County that same morning. The students gathered in the courtyard in front of the city's Hall of Justice and Records before marching toward Jefferson Avenue, carrying signs and demanding an end to what they called the criminalization of immigrants.
Student organizers represented the Sequoia Union High School District and Midpeninsula School in Menlo Park, according to The Almanac. As they marched, they chanted “La gente unida jamás será vencida,” a Spanish phrase that translates to “The people united will never be defeated,” the outlet reported. Signs read “No one is illegal on stolen land” and “We are not criminals, we are dreamers,” capturing the mood of a crowd that organizers said was responding directly to reported ICE enforcement in neighborhoods many of them call home.
Arrests Reported Across the Peninsula the Same Morning
The walkout unfolded against the backdrop of a fast-moving enforcement sweep. ICE made five arrests between 6 and 11 a.m. that same Tuesday, according to Faith in Action Bay Area, a nonprofit that tracks ICE activity and supports affected communities. According to NBC Bay Area, two of those arrests happened in East Palo Alto — one at a Chevron gas station and another on Woodland Avenue — while another occurred at 10 a.m. in the shared parking lot of a Dollar Tree and Home Depot in San Carlos, with two more arrests made in San Mateo at Chavez Supermarket and South Idaho Street.
The timing fed directly into students' sense of urgency. San Mateo County has seen a spike in targeted ICE arrests in recent weeks, with activity reported in East Palo Alto, San Mateo, San Carlos and Half Moon Bay, the article notes. Faith in Action Bay Area said at least 16 people had been detained across the county in the 10 days leading up to the walkout, a tally that the M-A Chronicle separately reported as at least 16 residents detained over a nine-day stretch, with seven of those arrests described by the organization as targeted detentions since the prior Friday.
Students Describe Fear and Family History
For some students, the protest was personal. Bea, a senior at Sequoia High School, said her father and his family members were detained by ICE after immigrating to the United States from South Africa when he was her age. Nephertytie, a student organizer at Menlo-Atherton High School, said students advised peers who were themselves at risk of detention to stay home while others marched and spoke on their behalf.
Alejandra, a sophomore at Sequoia High School, said she was honored to stand among so many people at the walkout and said young people had risked their own education to show support for those targeted by enforcement. She urged other local youth to speak up to drive change, saying she hopes ICE will leave both her street and the broader Bay Area. Other students echoed that mix of fear and resolve, saying recent arrests had frightened them but had not stopped them from speaking up for people at risk of detention, per the Almanac's reporting.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Local Unrest
Tuesday's demonstration was not an isolated event. Hundreds of students across the Sequoia Union High School District walked out in February 2025 to protest the Trump administration's immigration policies, with students from six schools — including Sequoia, Menlo-Atherton, Woodside, Redwood and Tide Academy and Sacred Heart Prep — marching through downtown Redwood City carrying Mexican and El Salvadoran flags before the protest moved to Courthouse Square, according to Redwood City Pulse.
Concern has also been building closer to Tuesday's march. Around a dozen volunteers gathered outside Maguire Correctional Facility in Redwood City on the night of Nov. 6 and into the next morning after reports that immigration enforcement agents were looking for recently released inmates and took at least one person into custody, Redwood City Pulse reported separately. A Redwood City Pulse report from May described Faith in Action Bay Area's director describing a shift in enforcement patterns, with neighborhood arrests now making up about half of all detentions, a change from the court-based arrests that had previously been more common.
The protest wave extended beyond San Mateo County as well. Roughly 1,100 middle and high school students from the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District checked out of school on the same Tuesday to protest ICE policies, with about 400 of them assembling downtown, according to Patch. For the students who marched through Redwood City, organizers said the goal was simple: to be heard by a community they feel is under increasing pressure, and to make clear that fear has not kept them from showing up.
