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NEW BEDFORD — More than 100 students “walked out” of New Bedford High School Wednesday to protest the School Committee’s failure to pass a resolution that they say would afford more protections and support to immigrant students.
Students demonstrated against the school board in response to a 4-3 vote at the June 9 School Committee meeting to table a resolution that would have publicly affirmed the district’s commitment to follow the guidance of Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell in the event that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents enter city schools.
The guidance from the AG’s office affirms, among other items, that schools are prohibited from sharing a student’s personally identifiable information with ICE agents, collecting information on immigration status or nation of birth, and allowing ICE to speak with a student without a signed judicial warrant.
Mayor Jon Mitchell and several other committee members voiced concerns at the June 9 meeting that the resolution had not been reviewed by legal counsel before passing on the bill.
“I’m not going to vote for anything that has not been reviewed by counsel,” Mitchell said at the meeting.
Member Ross Grace Jr. said that though he supported the spirit of the resolution, he has some reservations about its language.
“I’m fully behind doing anything to protect all of our children … and I’m willing to be at the front line,” Grace said at the meeting. “I do have an issue with the language.”
New Bedford High principal Joyce Cardoza said that the school district has made all attempts to protect students “within our purview.” This includes not releasing students’ data or information and not permitting entry into the building.
“The school department aligns with the same thing that the students are asking for,” Cardoza said. “I don’t think tabling it changes what we have been committed to doing which is ensuring that all of our students are protected in the way that we can.”
The walkout began at noon when students left the Philip Bronspiegel Memorial Auditorium and gathered in the front of the school before flocking to Hathaway Boulevard to hold signs. The signs read: “No One Is Illegal On Stolen Land,” “Protect Our Future,” and “Immigrants Make America Great.”
Fredricka Reis Freire, co-leader of the student-led walkout, said it is “heartbreaking” that the resolution has not yet been passed.
“This is something that needs to be passed,” Freire said. “We need to educate our students. We need to educate our students even if they’re not immigrants because ICE is going after anyone who looks different. Everyone needs to be educated because education is safety.”
Jayden Allen, another co-leader, said he hopes the mayor rethinks his decision to table the resolution and “touches into his humanity” for the next meeting.
“My mom came here on a visa, and she overstayed it. But now she’s a citizen. She pays taxes,” Allen said. “I’m kind of thinking like now if that was today, then she would have been deported. So I feel like I kind of got to stand up for all the families that this has happened to.”
Several students spoke, calling out what they described as attacks on diversity and the targeting of kids.
“We run this district. This is not their district,” one student said to the crowd.
Former Student Council Chair Elliott Talley said this is a “very appropriate” time for a walkout. He cited his past attempts to push for student representatives to be allowed to vote on the School Committee as another initiative that was tabled twice before the committee “just let it die.”
“They’ve had months now, and they’re continuing to kick the can down the road,” Talley said. “They’re tabling these resolutions, but you can’t table what’s happening to students.”
The protest comes as New Bedford faces a wave of ICE-related arrests. As of June 18, The Light has confirmed 31 — mostly male — detainees, largely from Guatemala.
The operations have created a climate of fear, according to some students.
Freire and Talley said they noticed a drop in attendance since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20 and immigrant arrests in the New Bedford area ensued.
“The school is full of optimism,” Talley said. “But I will also say these kinds of actions, especially with allowing ICE to come into schools, has made students actually not want to come to school.”
Although there have been no instances of ICE raids at New Bedford High, Talley referred to raids in students’ houses, graduations in other states and the student arrest in Milford on May 31 as examples for the drop in student attendance.
Allen, one of the leaders, said that although there has been uncertainty for some people, the atmosphere has also created a community, another thought echoed by Talley.
“We’re all fighting for a common cause, and we’re all fighting for something bigger than ourselves, which this student body needs to do,” Talley said. “They need to get involved with something bigger than themselves and to see them out here doing the work because they’re all so angry is wonderful.”
One NBHS student interviewed by The Light after her father was detained in May, said she noticed much lower attendance sometime around February.
“There was a day when half my classmates didn’t go [to school],” she recalled. “I was really confused and weirded out and got really nervous.”
In March, a violent operation targeting a home on Viall Street led to the detention and eventual deportation of Guatemalan nationals Miguel Ordoñez Socop and José Antonio Garcia Garcia. Their removal left behind four teenagers to fend for themselves. Activists said they had to work hard over the following days to get families to return their children to school.
The fallout from the raid led to the first protest against ICE in the city outside City Hall on March 29. There, New Bedford Public Schools Superintendent Andrew O’Leary called on the Trump administration to restore a sensitive locations policy to ensure students felt safe to go to school regardless of immigration status.
“On March 21, my sons woke up safe and warm and went to school,” O’Leary said on March 29. “Later that day, I learned that some of our students woke up to terror.
“We must demand the restoration of the sensitive locations memorandum,” he said. “Our schools, our hospitals, our students, must remain safe.”
Student leaders said the school administration and teachers have been supportive of the student protest. Talley said as long as students have a school ID, they will be allowed to return back inside the building.
“I feel like our teachers really have our backs,” Freire said.
Cardoza said students are responsible for any work they miss from walking out, but there is no punishment for participating students and described students’ exercising their right to protest as “powerful.”
“It’s important that students understand what their rights are, that their voices are heard and that they do it safely, peacefully,” Cardoza said. “So therefore, I’ll support that as long as you know it’s in support of something that benefits all students in a community.”
The School Committee will reconsider the resolution at its next meeting on Aug. 11. The last day of this school year for New Bedford High is Friday, June 20. Classes for the 2025-2026 school year will begin Aug. 27.
In the meantime, Freire said she hopes the walkout puts enough pressure on the School Committee to pass the resolution.
“I hope they see that enough people care, that students are speaking up for their peers and for themselves, and that they will pass this,” Freire said.
These students are our future voters of New Bedford, some current. They can and will help to chose who stays and goes. Can’t wait! Not only on this issue, they are children of local residents, they live through their parents treatment of employment in the City and School dept. Time for them to shout out for all the misdoing. Can you hear them now.
Please take care of our future,and do what’s right, these children are our FUTURE
Wait till these people grow up and have to pay the bills
So they’re asking the schools to do something they’re already doing?
Biden opened up the flood gates.Now we all have to pay.