Baton Rouge high schoolers march on state capitol, protest ICE

Baton Rouge, LA – On May 2, students from Baton Rouge High School and Liberty High School marched from the Louisiana State Capitol to reactionary Governor Jeff Landry’s mansion to demand “ICE out of everywhere!” This comes alongside a string of nationwide high school walkouts to celebrate International Workers’ Day.

International Workers’ Day, or May Day, is a holiday celebrating workers’ struggles. Trump’s attacks on the working class and deportations are hitting immigrants the hardest. The students carried on the legacy of hundreds of years of organizing by uniting on May Day to protest ICE attacks.

Baton Rouge High senior Selah Cheong said, “America was built on immigration through waves of newcomers who provided the essential labor, innovation and cultural diversity needed to transform the colonies into a global industrial power.”

Gabriela DeJean of Louisiana State University’s (LSU) Students for a Democratic Society continued by saying, “May Day is a day to celebrate the unbreakable spirits of workers. Immigrants brought May Day back onto the streets in 2006 when thousands of immigrants marched across this country demanding legalization for all.”

These students planned to walk out on Friday but faced threats from administration of not being able to graduate. This hostility came after Jeff Landry threatened the predominantly Black admins’ jobs if they allowed a walkout to happen. Landry has a long track record of meddling in public school affairs. He has signed a bill requiring schools to display the ten commandments, created an initiative to expand private school vouchers and take away resources from public schools, and was responsible for the firing of a law professor at LSU.

Landry also signed Act 399, which mandates cooperation with ICE agents and criminalizes any interference with federal immigration enforcement, to align Louisiana with Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Ziad Eissa of Freedom Road Socialist Organization said, “We are here to tell Landry and Trump we will not tolerate ICE in our state. The enemy is monopoly capitalism, and our allies are workers, documented or not.”

Since ICE’s attacks, some families have opted to keep their children home out of fear of separation. At LSU, university police collaborated with ICE to arrest two Iranian students in their off-campus apartments.

“It is not a crime to seek opportunities, or take a stroll down a street, or try to go to school without the fear of being taken away. Stand up against the brutality of ICE and Border Patrol!” Cheong exclaimed.

#BatonRougeLA #LA #StudentMovement #ImmigrantRights #ICE #MayDay