Updated: 1:29 p.m. Feb. 4, 2026
Students at multiple Los Angeles Unified School District schools walked out on Wednesday to denounce federal immigration raids that continue to separate families and traumatize neighborhoods across LA.
“This walkout is student-led, peaceful, and rooted in protecting our right to education and our communities. We’re moving with unity, strategy, and intention for our families and our future,” according to an Instagram post by LA School Walkout.
In Boyle Heights, Roosevelt High School students began walking out at 10:17 a.m. While the school gates remained closed, students exited through the administration building.
About 40 Roosevelt students marched down Fourth Street, turned right onto Soto Street and left onto First Street to meet up with students from Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez High School. As they marched, students chanted, “What do we want? ICE out,” and “No justice, no peace.”
Volunteers with Promesa Boyle Heights, wearing high-visibility vests, directed traffic and handed out posters reading, “Young, informed, powerful. East Los students fighting back since 1968.”
A 16-year-old junior at Roosevelt High School who lives in South Central held a sign that read, “I prefer my ICE crushed.” She said learning about the 1968 East Los Angeles walkouts inspired her to show up.
“My community was so strong that it changed the way that people viewed us … we’re more powerful together,” she said. “It’s important to show up because I’m here for people that can’t show up.”
Shortly before 11 a.m., Mendez High Principal César Quezada opened the front gate as students gathered in the quad, draped in Mexican flags, holding signs reading, “ICE out of our Schools and Communities,” and chanting, “The people united will never be divided!”
In Koreatown, students at Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools walked out at about 9:45 a.m. and headed toward City Hall. Hundreds of students from RFK joined classmates from across Los Angeles on the steps of City Hall, turning the plaza into a sea of flags, handmade signs, and music blaring through loudspeakers.
Among them was a 17-year-old RFK senior who said she came out to stand with her community.
“I don’t support what’s happening to my neighbors,” she said. “I’m thankful that my school was supportive of us walking out.”
Another 17-year-old student at RFK said she was marching on behalf of her immigrant parents.
“I’m here to support my parents who can’t be out here,” the student said, adding that she believes “Donald Trump should be stopped.”
An estimated 300 students from RFK schools participated, according to the Citizen app.
Hundreds of students from West Adams Preparatory High School in Pico Union, where some students also walked out on Monday, joined peers from across Los Angeles for Wednesday’s walkouts as well.
The students split off into two groups at the entrance of the school. One group headed toward Washington Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, and the other toward Washington and Hoover Street.
Two students said it was important for them to show they care about immigrants because their grandparents are themselves immigrants from Mexico.
“We want to show support for immigrants,” one 11th grader said.
About 25 students walked out at Miguel Contreras High School around 10:30 a.m., according to a staff member.
Social media posts showed students from Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet, James A. Garfield, Woodrow Wilson, Lincoln, and other campuses across LA also walked out.
For decades, student-led walkouts on the Eastside have served as a powerful tool for activism, dating back to the 1968 East LA Blowouts that shed light on inequalities for Mexican Americans in the public education system.
Now, a new generation of students is carrying on the tradition as a New York Times analysis shows President Donald Trump has deported roughly 500,000 people since taking office in 2025, and as federal immigration agents continue to terrorize LA and other cities across the country with violent raids. A series of student walkouts also occurred last year soon after Trump was inaugurated, before the raids.
Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, whose District 14 represents Boyle Heights and downtown LA, joined students on Wednesday and applauded young people for carrying on the legacy of Eastside walkouts.
“I am incredibly proud of the Eastside students who are leading with courage,” she said in a statement. “At a time when too many young people are going home to missing parents and neighborhoods bearing the terror and trauma of federal enforcement actions, these students are choosing solidarity over silence and community over fear.”
Students walking out on Wednesday are advocating for fully funded Dream Centers, “Know Your Rights” education, proper staff training on ICE protocols, and “true solidarity with our educators,” according to another LA School Walkout post.
They’re denouncing ICE agents’ “cruel and violent arrests,” marching in support of immigrants arrested despite having no criminal records, and standing with Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old whose detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sparked national outrage.
“If you have an accent, speak a different language, have brown skin, then you are automatically considered a ‘dangerous illegal alien,’ according to ICE and Trump,” read another Instagram post.
Students met around noon at City Hall, where guest speakers addressed their peers.
A sophomore from Woodrow Wilson High School, 15, was the first to speak. “Right now, we are witnessing our families, our friends, our neighbors, our working people are being taken by ICE,” he said. “We are living in constant fear, afraid to go to school, to work, even to (go to) religious sites.”
“I am here as a member of the youth of LA to come out and say that enough is enough,” he said in an interview with Boyle Heights Beat.
Shortly before 1 p.m., Los Angeles police cordoned off several streets leading to the Metropolitan Detention Center, including Temple and Alameda. Students were directed by adults to keep moving away from the cordoned area.
The student procession ended in front of the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo with student organizers thanking students for walking out and urging them to create a standing organization to continue their advocacy efforts.
Niamby Rendon, an adult volunteer who handed out water and snacks to students, said youth participation in the protest was important. Rendon, who also works at Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Koreatown, said May Day protests at MacArthur Park in 2007 was her introduction to activism.
“It’s amazing that they were able to coordinate this,” Rendon said. “I love seeing that the youth is aware and that they care.”
“What they do now impacts them more than it impacts us,” she added.
In this story, Boyle Heights Beat is withholding the names of students because they are minors.
Correction, Feb. 4, 2026 10:15 am: An earlier version of this story stated that a New York Times analysis showed roughly 540,000 people had been deported under the Trump administration. The correct number is 500,000.