Wenatchee High School Students March Over Immigration Policies

Approximately 200 Wenatchee High School students walked out of class Friday afternoon in protest of ICE and President Trump's immigration policies.

Student Organizers Lead Walkout

READ MORE: Moses Lake Students Stage Walkout

A group of Westside High School students organized its walkout and encouraged Wenatchee High School to participate. Westside High School leadership president Madeline Sutton, 16, said she saw an opportunity to make the young voices of Wenatchee heard.

"I went around to classrooms and gathered as many as I could and invited them to do the walkout," Sutton said.

Sutton added that there were about 40 participants at Westside's walkout Friday morning.

March From Campus to Memorial Park

Another organizer, Gwen Costello, 18, said her family had been directly impacted by ICE.

"It needs to be put to an end," Costello said. "I hope people are able to realize that what ICE is doing is truly [messed] up."

Fellow organizer, Alora Goy Martinez, 15, said this is the perfect time to hold a walkout in the wake of two killings of U.S. citizens by federal agents earlier this month.

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"The place we are in our world is very negative, and I think we all just need to have some humanity," Goy Martinez said. "There's a lot of different opinions going around, but no matter what, killing humans shouldn't be a thing that the U.S. does."

The students at Wenatchee High School walked out at around 1:20 p.m. and marched over a mile to gather at Memorial Park.

District Responds to Student Protest

Wenatchee School District spokesperson Diana Haglund said the district is not endorsing the walkout, but that the district wanted to make sure students participated safely.

"Our response is to make sure the students are safe while they are on our campus, and also to make sure that we are protecting our students' rights to peacefully gather and express their concerns related to immigration," Haglund said. "Students leaving campus during the school day, that would be considered unexcused, and parents can contact us for more information or if they choose to excuse the absence."

Regional Walkouts Across North Central Washington

The Wenatchee walkout follows similar student protests in Moses Lake, Ephrata, Quincy, and other north central Washington school districts. They say they are protesting ICE after 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a veteran's affairs ICU nurse in Minneapolis and legal U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by border patrol agents Saturday, Jan. 24.