Hundreds of students at Sunnyslope Highschool protested the recent actions of ICE by executing a walk out yesterday between 5th and 6th hour according to an unofficial Instagram account called @sunnyslopenews_.
Students left class around 12:30 and came together in the front of the school before embarking on a 2 mile walk.
Staff marked students who left class without a parental excusal as absent.
Students had the burden of having a parent call to excuse their absence or they will face the normal consequences aligned in the GUSHD attendance guidelines.
Sunnyslope joined schools across Arizona, including, but not limited to Apollo High School, Central High School, Mesa High School, Tolleson High School, and Washington High School who all conducted similar activities in the last few weeks.
While the modern ICE mission has been consistent in operation style since June 2025, when 2,000 ICE officers arrived in Los Angeles, CA, the wave of protests, especially with high schools, seem to be a response to publicly available videos of ICE interactions with the people of Minneapolis, MN happening in January.
Organizing the local walk out, Junior Elena Petty and Seniors Owen Beltran and Natalie Beute, welcome the crowd with mega phones.
Multiple students addressed the problem in a small speech for everyone before the official march began.
Petty claimed that “we’ve seen a lot of things in our world lately that we have been upset by and with the demographic of our school I wanted to speak up. I think teens speaking up to protest is really powerful and it sends a message to the country that this needs to be fixed.”
Many students supported the event and although no official number is known, between 600 and 1200 students had been at the protest from 12:30 to 2:30.
Senior Ferith Diaz said that he was “very surprised at the amount of people who showed up” and proud of the student body because it proves to the world “that there’s a lot of people you can count on for such a protest.”
Officially, the school could not sanction the event but Petty explained she was in contact with administration and that “helping us figure out safety was their number one priority when they didn’t sanction the event.”
The goal of this protest is to create a spark in people’s hearts to make desperately needed change.
The students wanted to reach the eyes of politicians, pleading to them that all immigrants aren’t the problem.
“There are criminals, but they aren’t innocent families being affected. We are all people,” Diaz said.
Despite this being a peaceful protest, some backlash has come about.
According to Beute, adults began making false statements about the protest.
These older individuals claimed “that we were political pawns, which is just so far from the truth,” said Beute.
She continued to explain that “if people really felt that way, I don’t think they would have been walking for two and a half hours through the heat to fight for a cause like this.”
Despite the outside opinions this matter is facing, students at Sunnyslope were inspired at yesterday’s movement to speak up for change.
Beute shared that “our voice again is the most dangerous weapon that we can use in battle, and if people feel empowered to use their voice, they are going to be more empowered to do anything,” inspiring everyone around her.
