Dozens of East Aurora School District 131 students walked out on Tuesday in a protest against federal immigration enforcement activity, adding to a string of recent actions in the Chicago area and around the country.
The rally happened just a day after a similar action on Chicago’s North Side, when hundreds of students walked out of their classrooms in protest of the Trump administration’s continued mass deportation campaign, according to reports.
The recent walkouts follow a series of actions staged in Chicago and across the country last week after the killing of Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse who was fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis.
Several videos circulating on social media show dozens of East Aurora students holding signs and walking outside of the high school and through downtown Aurora early Tuesday afternoon, car horns blaring in the background.
East Aurora School District 131 Superintendent Bob Halverson said only high school students participated in the walkout on Tuesday, which began around noon. The district, having heard about the planned walkout, offered a “secure location inside the school,” Halverson said, for students to “voice their concerns,” but students at the high school ultimately walked out of the building.
The district, in a statement on its Facebook page on Tuesday, said it does not condone walkouts during the school day, but noted that district-level administration were present and worked with the Aurora Police Department on Tuesday to “ensure students remained safe throughout their walk.”
The Aurora Police Department, too, said in a statement on Facebook that it was aware of the walkout, and reiterated that it worked with school administrators to “help ensure the safety of students and staff.”
Faculty and staff remained in school buildings to continue instruction for students who did not participate in the rally, the district said in the statement. Class attendance will be recorded, district officials said, and families may receive a notification if their student was marked absent.
Some students at Fred Rodgers Magnet Academy also participated in an “internal walk” at a location within the school, according to Halverson.
Halverson said he was unaware of any staff planning involved in the walkout, and said he believed the action was student-driven.
Ben Fredericks, of Aurora, told The Beacon-News on Tuesday that his daughter, a freshman at the high school, came home from school on Monday talking about the planned walkout. He and her mother encouraged their daughter, 14, to participate.
“It’s important to stand up with your peers and to stand up against injustice,” Fredericks said on Tuesday afternoon.
Fredericks said his family has participated in protests recently, but his own commitment to these issues goes back much further — to growing up in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood, where he said he was encouraged to treat everyone with respect.
“We stand up for what’s right,” Fredericks said. “What’s going on isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination.”
In recent months, thousands were detained in the Chicago area — including Aurora — during President Donald Trump’s administration’s immigration crackdown in Chicago, dubbed Operation Midway Blitz.
One incident in Aurora involved an alleged immigration detention during the school day outside Simmons Middle School on the city’s East Side in November, and another incident the month before resulted in two protestors being detained outside Allen Elementary after being confronted by federal agents.
The October incident prompted the district’s school board to pass a measure seeking to ban federal immigration enforcement actions from occurring on its property just a few days after.
And, in the months since, District 131 has been examining its procedures and adapting to the recent enforcement actions in the area, hosting, for example, a training for leadership at the district’s schools in December and making plans for each school building to create a group of staff volunteers who will respond in the event of federal immigration activity at their school building.
“Our number one job is to educate children,” Halverson said, and pointed to ongoing efforts within the district related to protocols for immigration enforcement activity. “We always focus on the education of students, but, when our students have concerns, we definitely want to hear their voice.”
As for what’s next following the walkout, Fredericks said he was “proud” of the students who participated, but that he hopes the action leads to a “lifetime of them standing up for what’s right.”
“It’s not just today,” he said. “It’s not going away tomorrow.”
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
