At 12:40 pm, hundreds of Community High School students flooded the sidewalks of North Fifth Street, above the traffic, voices chanted, “Power to the people, no one is illegal.” 

The February 4, 2026 walkout was a district wide protest in opposition to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and its unconstitutional approach. The protest included the four public high schools in the AAPS district. CHS junior and a walkout coordinator Rosie Meisler was the origin of what became a united front throughout the individual schools. 

“Oftentimes, my parents see stuff on the news and say ‘I’m so sorry that this is the world we’ve given you,’” Meisler said. “I don’t want to say that to the next generation. I want to be able to tell the next generation that I did my very best to provide them with a world that is beautiful and full of love.”

Organizing this project was a complex process for Meisler involving reaching out to other schools and assembling a diverse coordinating team. She specifically chose to perform a walkout to garner attention by disrupting the everyday schedule while allowing the protest to be available for any student wishing to partake. Moreover, Meisler’s hope was that the need to be in-person for the walkout would increase participation numbers and mobilize students into using their first-amendment rights. 

“The connections citywide is really one of the things that made it feel so powerful,” Meisler said. “Knowing that it wasn’t just our school alone, knowing that we were all doing this together as one movement.” 

The protest began with students rallying on the back lawn of CHS with chants such as “This is what America looks like” and “No hate, No fear, Immigrants are welcome here.” Plus, learning guidelines and safety protocols for the protest. Many were holding cardboard signs that expressed their demands for the Federal government including “Abolish ICE” and “No one is illegal on stolen land.” 

Afterwards, the march commenced North Fifth Street heading towards the Federal Building. While walking, they continued their chants and cheered when cars honked and pedestrians hollered in support. CHS senior Nina Beals was one of the protesters and felt a heightened sense of community even among students she had never met or conversed with. 

“There were people of all ages, all friend groups and we were all chanting together. It felt like a really unified experience,” Beals said. “And it really just made me proud of my school, because it’s full of so many amazing people and amazing leaders who are willing to make a change.” 

Once they reached the Federal Building, the students positioned themselves on the steps of the building. They continued to chant “Power to the People, No One is Illegal” and wave their signs while standing beside their peers. After the full school had assembled, speeches from CHS students and organizers such as Meisler were shared. Mia Fletecher, a CHS senior, gave a heartwarming speech on her love story with America as a child. Particularly Fletcher describes being enamored with the “melting pot” of America instead of the Pledge of Allegiance.

“I don’t say this to make it seem like it’s some sort of idyllic version of America that we should always be striving towards, because it exists,” Fletcher said. “It exists here. It exists in the dorm rooms at the University of Michigan. It exists in some of your guys’s kitchens. And we have far more reason to want to learn from each other than to want to fear each other.”

When the speeches concluded, the protest returned to Community High School where students disbanded to return to class. However, Meisler hopes that the impact of this walkout will remain with students to remind them that the power lies in the people.

“I want students to feel empowered, knowing that they can do stuff,” Meisler said. “I want students to feel connected, knowing that if they are going through something, we got their back.” 

“Raise your hand if you or any of your ancestors are or were immigrants. Nearly all of you should be raising your hands right now. This nation was built by immigrants and is upheld by immigrants,” said Tova Weiss, PHS senior and protest organizer at the start of the walkout . “Today, students across AAPS are walking out as one unified body in defense of America’s history, culture and most importantly, its people.”

When members of the Pioneer Democrats Club heard about a student-led walkout at Community High School, they immediately got to planning for their own. Club leaders quickly began collaborating with the Latino Students Union (LSU) and Club Opportunity to put their plan into action.

In the days leading up to the event, students met up during lunch to make signs while gaining much-needed interest and anticipation from the pioneer community. Leaders of participating clubs constantly shared posts online, educating members and getting the word out about the upcoming walkout. 

Weiss played a key role in organizing the walkout. After countless hours of sharing, planning and talking, it all came down to one moment she hoped was worth it. 

When she started her opening remarks, she looked up to see an audience of hundreds alongside her, ready to share their voices for what they believed in.  

“Students care, and a lot of students don’t know what they can do with those feelings. People are scared. They want to take action, but it’s hard to figure out how to do that as a young person, as a high schooler,” Weiss said. “This walkout gave people an opportunity to step up and show our immigrant students that they are supported and we will fight with them.”

The students had planned a set of speakers to educate, share personal stories and connect the crowd before they marched from the main entrance to the corner of Main Street and Stadium Boulevard before heading back to the clocktower entrance of Pioneer for closing remarks.

For many, such as PHS senior Diego Ruiz-Bautista, president of LSU, the walkout meant support from members of his community. As a Mexican-American, he has experienced many of the issues the protest was fighting for firsthand in a way many Americans wouldn’t be able to understand.

Speaking to the school, he was able to highlight the issues and educate students on topics that they may not have otherwise learned about and understood the impact of. 

“We’re using our voices to voice what’s right. We’re all humans. Just because we were born a couple 100 miles away doesn’t make us any different,” Ruiz-Bautista said. “So seeing that many people come out and support the Latino community, it means love.”

Moving forward, student organizers plan to continue speaking up for their values and rights. Club Opportunity co-president Sam Hunter reminds people that for those protected or under less risk, that it is important to share your voice for those who cannot.

“We [need to] come out and support people who can’t, for the people who were scared to come out today, and the people who had to bring their identification,” Hunter said. “I had no worries walking out there to speak. We need to not take away from these movements, but also recognize the power we have.”

With red oil pastel pasted onto their faces, Huron High School (HHS) students left their classes and gathered together under the Huron arch to demand change and protest against ICE (Immigration Control Enforcement).

The walkout began at 12:16 pm, after attendance was taken for HHS students’ fifth-hour classes. The crowd of hundreds unified together in chants and listened to stories ranging from personal experiences to poetry. Numerous students held up signs to make a statement, including flags and creative phrases.

HHS freshman Danica Austin’s sign read “Hands Off Our Students,” which she held up with three other students, a small representation of the overall sense of community Austin took away from the protest in full.

“[My favorite part was] that we all were together and that we all decided to do this together,” Austin said.

Not only were the students in the protest unified on their stance, but the number of students who walked out played a key role in the togetherness for Austin.

Lorena Moore, a sophomore at HHS who helped plan the walkout, finds that the accessibility of a walkout drives the student turnout, as shown on Wednesday at Huron High School.

“Skipping school for a whole day, or other demonstrations, is kind of hard to plan and not necessarily accessible to all students who aren’t able to skip the whole day,” Moore said. “A walkout can be very powerful. It can be short and safe and something that people can do if it’s only one hour of their whole school day.”

During the protest, Moore read a poem titled “Dear America” by poet Jose Bello. Moore feels that the presence of ICE near Ann Arbor in recent days has given her a sense of responsibility to speak up, especially in her high school community.

“Some people aren’t aware of the situation at all and [they] maybe don’t think about it,” Moore said. “It’s important because as youth and citizens of America, if we see something wrong, we need to step up, and we need to say something to promote change in our community.”

As they promoted their demands with creative signs in hand, Skyline High School (SHS) students walked out of their school at 12:40 pm. Like the other AAPS high schools, students organized a walkout in protest of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policies and actions. 

Many SHS students gave speeches that emphasized the negative effects of ICE agents. Afterwards, all of the students who participated in the protest marched around the school in unity.

SHS junior Ellie Min appreciates all of the students coming together to express their opinions and stand up against the actions of ICE.

“I think it’s pretty cool to see how many people gathered,” Min said. It’s important to protest as opposed to people just staying home because you could actually see that people were supporting in coming together.”

As she stood on top of the enormous bald eagle statue outside the school, SHS junior and walkout organizer Veronica Terry began her speech with facts about ICE over the last few weeks, then emphasized her opinion on the topic.

“Immigrants are not a threat to this country,” Terry said. “They are contributing members of the community; they are people, just like you and me. Immigrants are what make America great.”

The process of organizing the SHS walkout started after students from the other AAPS high schools (Community, Pioneer and Huron) posted on Instagram and made flyers about the event. Terry is one of the many walkout organizers at SHS; she and the other organizers were motivated by ICE detentions that have been happening across the country.

“We were seeing the stuff with ICE in Minneapolis and them unleashing outright war on civilians; ICE coming to Washtenaw County and detaining families in the Ypsilanti area trying to pick up their kids from the school bus stop,” Terry said.

Terry admits that she was a little nervous before giving her speech; the huge crowd of people felt daunting to her. She wasn’t sure if the Skyline administration would be on her side when making openly political statements. However, after some reflection, Terry brought herself back to her core values and decided that if she wanted change to happen, she would eventually have to speak up and “be the change.”