SHS Students Stage Anti-Ice Demonstration

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

On the heels of Martin Luther King Jr Day, a day that honors one of the Civil Rights Movement’s most influential figures, students from Scarsdale High School banded together and staged a walk-out to raise their voices in protest of ICE.

SHS students braved freezing temperatures to join thousands of others around the nation who walked out of schools and businesses on Tuesday January 20th, to take part in a “Free-America” anti-ICE march.

Addressing the robust crowd of students, the organizer of the walk-out (a current senior at SHS) reminded those gathered that, “Scarsdale High School graduate Soo Go was kidnapped by ICE outside of her routine immigration hearing -- only to be released from detention after five days of protest and national media coverage.”

The student went on to explain, “Miss Go, whose visa was valid through this past December, was seized and detained nonetheless -- and it was in this detainment where she was transferred from Manhattan to Louisiana’s Richwood Correctional Center.

And while she was returned to Scarsdale in less than a week, it’s undeniable that Miss Go and her family had far more resources than the vast majority of the other sixty eight thousand people who were detained by ICE in 2025 -- many, like Go, who are legal immigrants or even refugees or American citizens.”

Describing the process that many detainees experience, the student added, “Also just like Go, many of these detainees are transferred to detention centers across the country, making achieving justice as difficult as possible for those wrongly arrested.

Privately operated detention centers like Richwood, run nation-wide on our tax dollars, lining the pockets of the CEOs of companies like LaSalle Corrections or CoreCivic while their detainees are kept in poor conditions without access to outside communication, lawyers, or even enough food.”

Bringing their impassioned speech to a close, the student called on their peers to stand in solidarity with those who are affected by this cruelty and to contact their elected officials to advocate for the abolishment of ICE and for agents to be replaced by more people working in customs to get visas approved and to improve the system overall.

After stepping down from their make-shift podium, the organizer led the group of protestors on a peaceful march through the school grounds, down to the library and back to the Brewster Road entrance. While chants of “No More Ice” filled the air, another SHS senior explained that they thought it was important to take part in the walk-out to show that the students in Scarsdale are “united against what we see as injustice.”

Another student added “What we see happening in this country is horrendous and in many cases, actually illegal and it is important that we raise awareness about it all.”

Yet another student joined the march because they themselves are a descendent of immigrants. And while the student and their family are U.S. citizens, they fear that they or people like them, could be unfairly taken from their homes.

After marching peacefully through the school grounds, the students ended their protest on bended knee singing the “Star Spangled Banner," demonstrating that patriotism has many faces.