On Friday, January 30, Saint Francis students walked out of classes in opposition to the policies of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in conjunction with a national shutdown movement urging people to participate in “no work, no school, no shopping.”
On Thursday night, senior Chase Corso created an Instagram account under the handle sfhswalkout2026 to inspire Saint Francis students to join the nationwide protest and provide clear information on how it would be carried out. “Students, this is your opportunity to have a voice, speak up for what you believe in,” said an Instagram story posted by Corso, “and rally together as a school to fight against injustice within our communities.”
The story was viewed nearly 2000 times, according to a Palo Alto newspaper. Additional posts encouraged students to bring posters and prepare to walk to the Mountain View City Hall at 9:25 AM. Students at Archbishop Mitty High School, Mountain View High School, and Los Altos High School coordinated their own walkout efforts, said Tanushri Rajesh (’26), who helped organize the Saint Francis protest.
Rajesh said Corso was inspired to create the account after she reached out to him over her concerns on the recent actions of ICE.
“I think the walkout also helps a lot of people who don’t follow the news to get a sense of what’s going on. Because people know the Trump Administration is deporting people and doing bad stuff,” said Rajesh, “but who specifically is he deporting? Or how, specifically, is he deporting these people? People don’t know what ICE does to these people, or where they’re sent to.”
Immediately before the walkout, Principal Katie Teekell expressed her support for students standing up for marginalized communities over the loudspeaker, but emphasized that the school’s position was to remain on campus out of safety. A similar sentiment was reflected in an email sent to parents following the walkout.
Despite the announcements, the protests continued as planned. The movement bloomed into a school-wide campaign with over 500 students participating in the walkout, according to Corso. Ruhani Seth, a sophomore who attended the protest, said she was “happy to see that there were so many people there who were willing to participate in [the walkout].”
However, not all students shared the same perspective. Some who didn’t agree with the walkout chose to show up to school with their own forms of expression.
A small group of students, for instance, brought a flag with “Trump” emblazoned on it to the Quad as the protesters were congregating.
“I can see why people did walk out,” Hugh Carolan (’28) said, “as they tend to disagree with a lot of the decisions our president makes.” He believed students had the wrong idea about the purpose of the protest: “Sometimes these stories get twisted, and it doesn’t take much convincing from a person who already doesn’t like our administration to not understand the whole story and just join the opposing side.”
Hugh added, “I feel if more people actually understood what happened, less people would’ve walked out. [But] I also totally think that the ICE agents were too violent and trigger happy.”
At City Hall, Corso led students in a prayer and moment of silence for victims of ICE, calling specific attention to the killings of civilians Renee Good and Alex Pretti during an ICE surge in Minnesota. Former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had propagated claims that Good and Pretti acted as domestic terrorists, statements that caused widespread uproar predating the school walkouts.
“I feel as though violence is never the answer and the two deaths in Minneapolis were a clear calling point to me that something was going wrong in our country, and I wanted to speak up loudly against it,” said Corso.
Saint Francis protestors then assembled on the El Camino Real and Castro Street sidewalk holding up signs to oncoming traffic.
At roughly 1:00 PM, Saint Francis joined Mountain View and Los Altos students, culminating in more than 1000 protestors. Mountain View Police were also present toward the end of the event, temporarily closing the intersection of Mercy and Castro Street for students.
Corso was grateful for the other schools that showed up, saying, “It was truly inspiring watching the communities come together and protest on El Camino. It really showed me that together we can find community amongst all groups of people. Catholic, Jewish, Hispanic, African American, White, Muslim, everyone should be able to coexist together. I feel the protests merging represents a hope for the youth in our country that we aren’t completely individualized and we can come together to support fellow Americans.”
Corso added that the protest’s timing was especially pertinent: “In particular, with events such as the Super Bowl coming up, I wanted local leaders to realize that kids were not going to settle to watch their neighbors be unlawfully detained and maybe even deported.” Seth, who was a first time protester, shared this sentiment, and encouraged others to participate in civic engagement: “I definitely recommend speaking out about this kind of stuff because every single thing has an impact.”
