Similar Student Protests Spread in Dozens of U.S. Cities on February 6
On Friday, February 6, 2026, students at Bellaire High School in Houston, Texas, walked out as part of a coordinated regional effort involving several area schools, including Cypress Falls and Conroe High Schools, to protest operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amid fears that its agents will be allowed onto school property to detain students and their families.
The Houston Chronicle article reproduced below on the Bellaire walkout conveys important developments in the fight to oppose deportations across the United States.
The widespread high-school student walkouts on January 30 are now being followed by new and similar grassroots initiatives at schools around the country.
Organized locally, these protests show that high school students are not waiting for others to prompt them into action. They’re taking initiatives that can help build a nationwide movement to oppose the anti-immigrant crackdown.
According to a partial scan of news reports, such walkouts and student protests took place on February 6 in about 90 middle schools and high schools in the following 19 states and 36 cities:
ARKANSAS: Avon (Avon HS); Ft. Smith (Northside, Southide HS) Little Rock (Bryant, Central, Joe T. Robinson, Springdale HS, eStem Public Charter School;) & Rogers (Rogers HS.)
CALIFORNIA: Modesto (Beyer, Davis, Downey, Gregori, Johansen HS); Oakland (Head-Royce HS); Orinda (Miramonte, Orinda Intermediate HS); Pittsburg (MLK Jr., Pittsburgh HS); & San Francisco (Grattan Elementary School).
GEORGIA: Savannah (Savannah Arts Academy).
ILLINOIS: Chicago (Napperville, Nicholas Senn HS); Oswego (Oswego, Oswego East, Plano HS).
INDIANA: Fort Wayne (Mishawaka, South Side, Southport HS); Indianapolis (Ben Davis, Brownsburg, Carmel, Noblesville, North Central, Westfield HS); New Palestine (Greenfield-Central, Mt. Vernon, New Palestine HS); South Bend (Elkhart, Jimtown, John Adams, Washington HS).
IOWA: Iowa City (Iowa City, Southeast, West HS.)
KANSAS: Olathe (Olathe HS).
KENTUCKY: Louisville (Central, Francis Parker, J Graham Brown, Manual HS).
MARYLAND: Baltimore (Baltimore City College, Hereford HS & George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology).
MASSACHUSETTS: Boston (Winsor HS); Brookline (Brookline HS).
MICHIGAN: Ann Arbor (Community, Plymouth-Canton Educational Park HS).
MISSOURI: St. Louis (Parkway South HS).
NEBRASKA: Lincoln (Daws, Goodrich, Irving, Mickle, Park Middle Schools; & Northeast, North Star HS).
NEW MEXICO: Santa Fe (Santa Fe HS).
PENNSYLVANIA: Montgomery County (Towamencin Township HS); York City (York, William Penn Senior HS).
TENNESSEE: Brentwood (Brentwood HS).
TEXAS: Houston (Bellaire HS); Edinburg (Robert Vela HS).
UTAH: Salt Lake City (Cottonwood, East, Judge Memorial Catholic, Highland, Hilcrest Jr., Murray, Olympus, Riverside, Skyline HS); West Valley City (Granger, West HS).
WASHINGTON: Chelan County; (Cashmere HS) Edmonds (College Place Middle School, Edmonds-Woodway HS); Seattle (several high schools staged walkouts and students marched/rallied outside City Hall).
The Houston Chronicle article also reports on threats by Texas governor Greg Abbott to demand suspensions and even criminal charges against students and teachers accused of exercising such freedom of speech and assembly.
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) warned that teachers found to be “facilitating” or “encouraging” walkouts may be subject to investigation and the loss of their teaching credentials.
These undemocratic moves need to be taken seriously. Around the country school authorities have threatened suspensions of students for participating in these walkouts.
Instead of simply marking the student for the usual “unexcused absence,” school authorities are seeking to intimidate and instill fear in students protesting attacks by the government on immigrants and democratic rights.
Examples other than the Houston area school districts include:
Brevard County, Florida. School Board Chair Matt Susin issued a letter to parents explicitly stating that students participating in walkouts could face suspension. Despite these warnings, walkouts occurred at Viera, Rockledge, and Satellite high schools on February 6, 2026.
Southport, Indiana. Students at Southport High School were issued three-day suspensions for “insubordination” after leaving campus for an ICE protest.
Plainfield, Indiana. School leaders warned that any student leaving without permission would face an immediate three-day suspension.
While many school districts and local and state authorities attempt to deny that students have a democratic right to protest, they in fact do have a right to freedom of speech.
In the 1969 case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a school could not prohibit students from wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. Since then, courts have upheld students’ free speech rights, echoing a standard established in Tinker that schools can only intervene if their actions cause “substantial disruption.”
“It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate,” the court wrote in a majority opinion in 1969.
We publish the article that follows for the information of our readers. The headline, text, and photos below are from the original.
— World-Outlook editors
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Hundreds of Houston-area students protest ICE despite threats from the TEA and Greg Abbott
By Ashley Soebroto, Claire Partain, Staff Writers.
Updated Feb. 6, 2026, 1:07 p.m.
Hundreds of students at several Houston-area districts walked out of class Friday afternoon [February 6, 2026] to protest the federal immigration crackdown, defying Gov. Greg Abbott’s threat to punish students, their teachers and schools for disrupting the school day with political activism.
Schools with demonstrations included Houston ISD’s Bellaire High School; Humble ISD’s Atascocita and Summer Creek high schools; Pasadena ISD’s South Houston High School; Klein ISD’s Klein and Klein Collins high schools; and four high schools in Conroe ISD.
At Bellaire High, many students held signs saying they were there to protest ICE, not skip class. The turnout — over 150 students — was half of what was originally planned, said Ada Arya, editor-in-chief of the school newspaper.
“For the administrators who are objecting to this and trying to prevent it, their jobs are replaceable, and our families aren’t,” Arya said.
Some students chose not to participate because they were afraid of getting their school or teachers in trouble, fellow editor-in-chief Serena Li said. Students who participated said they knew they faced potential disciplinary action but walked out to speak up for those without a voice.
“I think that it is so disgusting that people in power are using that power to discourage students from using their voice,” Serena Li said.
Texas schools have seen mass student demonstrations this week against arrests and recent killings by federal immigration officers. Thousands of Fort Bend ISD students walked out of class Tuesday, while over 100 HISD students rallied for the release of their classmate, Mauro Henriquez, 18, who has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Before Friday’s demonstrations, some local school principals echoed warnings from state authorities.
Bellaire High School Dean of Instruction Debra Campbell told families in a message Thursday [February 5] that disruptions should remain outside of the school day. Students who engage in speech that “impairs school operations” or leave class without permission could receive unexcused absences, detentions or suspensions, she said. School administrators sent another warning to families Friday morning.
“I write to remind parents and students that no form of protest that interferes with the educational environment will be allowed on campus,” she said.
The Texas Education Agency announced earlier this week that it will discipline teachers who help students protest. School officials and teachers cannot “neglect students released onto public streets” or “facilitate disruption” during school hours, and teachers who are found to have encouraged protest activity will be investigated and sanctioned, according to an agency bulletin.
The guidance also said districts participating in “inappropriate political activism” could face state oversight, including replacing their elected board of trustees with a state-appointed board of managers.
Abbott has also called for some students who walk out of class to be arrested and threatened to strip funding from schools “that abandon their duty to teach our kids the curriculum required by law.”
“Disruptive walkouts allowed by schools lead to just this kind of chaos,” Abbott said on X. “Schools and staff who allow this behavior should be treated as co-conspirators and should not be immune for criminal behavior.”
Attorney General Ken Paxton also announced earlier this week that his office launched an investigation into Austin ISD for allegedly “facilitating student protest against lawful immigration enforcement activities.”
In a statement Friday [February 6], Adriana Piñon, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, criticized threats from Abbott against student-led walkouts protesting ICE. She said government officials cannot punish students “simply because they dislike their message.”
“What the state is threatening, including school takeovers, goes beyond routine punishment,” Piñon said. “The state is threatening drastic and severe consequences for peaceful speech that could amount to retaliation, which is unconstitutional.”
Caelyn Smith, a sophomore who protested outside The Woodlands High School on Friday, said she was outraged when the TEA announced new sanctions on schools for students who walkout to protest ICE, calling it a violation of their First Amendment right.
“I see all across the country that families are being torn apart,” Smith said. “It’s so important that we do these things because it shows that even the people in (red states) care.”
A Wednesday [February 4] email sent to parents from The Woodlands High School discouraged students from staging walkouts during the school day, stating that students who participate could result in unexcused absences, loss of parking privileges, loss of final exam exemptions, and other disciplinary actions, such as in-school suspensions.
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Categories: Immigration / Refugees, US Politics
On February 6 student walkouts and protests also occurred in Portland, Oregon at David Douglas High School and in Woodburn, Oregon at Woodburn High School.