Wauwatosa East High School Students Walk Out to Protest ICE!

January 12, 2026

Wauwatosa East senior Fallon Cortwright helped organize the walkout, after hearing the idea from other seniors.

“It’s really great to see that everyone came out, and they made signs and they were chanting and the energy was up. So it was really great to hear,” Cortright told reporters.

Cortright said the goal of the walkout was student and community awareness about ICE’s actions.

“I’m hoping that people will see this, [and] maybe other schools will be inspired to do their own walkouts. It can be a movement of schools saying ‘No, we know what’s going on and isn’t right,'” Cortright said. “We’re standing up for the schools that are being shut down due to the overflow of ICE agents coming in and raiding their schools. We’re here because of the people who have died, the people who have been detained and hopefully this is inspirational to the people in our community and in our country.”

Student Charles Radcliffe, also a senior, said it’s important for people their age to show they know what’s going on and that ICE’s actions “are not a normal thing to be happening in our country.”

“I think it’s really important that we let people know that we know that it’s not normal because it’s just powerful to have this many people speak up for a unified cause,” Radcliffe said. “I really want to thank people like Fallon for getting us all on the same page here because it’s easy to say, ‘Oh, we should do this,’ but to actually take the steps to make it happen, it’s really something we have to be thankful for.” [Source: https://www.jsonline.com/]