Seattle Students Walk Out in Protest over ICE Actions

 From The Seattle Times:

Young voices erupted in waves in front of Seattle City Hall as hundreds of students from 17 Seattle high schools walked out of class Thursday to protest immigration enforcement across the nation and in their communities.

About half of the crowd broke away in an unplanned march to the Space Needle, halting traffic as they flooded Third Avenue.

As the protest began around noon, teenagers leaned over the railings in the courtyard outside City Hall, climbed on each other’s shoulders and cheered like they were at a pep rally, as car horns honked in support. The students chanted, even screamed, “ICE out now” and, most loudly, a “say it once, say it twice” rhyming chant about Immigration and Customs Enforcement that included a repeated expletive.

That rhyming chant should not be too difficult to figure out.

Organized by ICE Out Seattle Schools, a student-led coalition, the teenagers demanded their elected leaders vote to defund ICE and called for local leaders to take action to protect their communities from the agency, said organizer Amara Aalfs-Weinbaum, 18, a Lakeside Upper School senior.

Mayor Katie Wilson issued an executive order prohibiting federal immigration authorities from using city property for staging operations and directed Seattle police to document ICE activity. 

“It honestly feels like my voice is heard,” said Mariana Garnica, 16, a Chief Sealth International High School junior. “As a Latino woman, not much of our voice is heard these days. … It feels good to know that people have my back, as I have theirs.”

Good for them.