{"id":171708,"date":"2026-02-10T10:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T10:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/171708\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T10:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T10:22:10","slug":"sfsu-students-walk-out-in-protest-of-ice-golden-gate-xpress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/171708\/","title":{"rendered":"SFSU students walk out in protest of ICE \u2013 Golden Gate Xpress"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"San Francisco State University students walkout as part of a rally against ICE at Malcolm X Plaza on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (Juan Padilla \/ Golden Gate Xpress)<\/p>\n

Students rallied at Malcolm X Plaza earlier today to voice their opposition to ICE.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following weeks of anti-ICE protests across America, Michaela MacCallum, a 22-year-old biology major at San Francisco State University, co-organized the walkout with Indivisible SF to build community with peers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the violence and brutality and the murders happening in the street should not be happening,\u201d MacCallum said. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of the message that I want to send to all the people on our campus who don\u2019t feel exactly safe. I want them to know that there is a community of people on campus that believes in them and that what\u2019s happening in our country is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shawn Harrigan, a 21-year-old cinema major at SFSU, decided to walk out of class in support of not only undocumented immigrants, but all immigrants, citing the violence ICE has been authorized to use.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"San Francisco State University students protest ICE while holding signs during a walkout on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (Gwen Murray<\/a> \/ Golden Gate Xpress)<\/p>\n

\u201cI came out here in support of undocumented immigrants and immigrants in general. I have a lot of relation to immigrants personally, and so it\u2019s important to me,\u201d Harrigan said. \u201cThe authority to execute someone on the street is not something that any law enforcement has, let alone ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n

The walkout coincided with a group of religious demonstrators who decided to protest at SFSU. Five protesters held up signs with anti-LGBTQ+ messages, including \u201cHomo sex is sin\u201d and \u201cGod hates hands that shed innocent blood.\u201d David Grisham was among them, livestreaming the gathering. He supports ICE, but did concede that the agency should not be committing violence against American citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were already here for the Super Bowl and thought we\u2019d come here before leaving town. We\u2019re not opposed to ICE. We\u2019re pro-law enforcement,\u201d Grisham said. \u201cWe\u2019re opposed to some of the things that ICE might be doing, like shooting people when they shouldn\u2019t be shooting them. [I didn\u2019t like] the last time they shot Mr. [Alex] Pretti, that didn\u2019t look too good on camera.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Anti-LGBTQ+ protesters picket at Malcolm X Plaza as San Francisco State University students speak out against ICE on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (Juan Padilla \/ Golden Gate Xpress)<\/p>\n

Former Colma Mayor and City Councilmember John Goodwin attended the walkout and spoke on the importance of the First Amendment in response to the religious group.
\u201c[The Religious group] has a First Amendment right to protest, and they appear to be peaceful at this point, and we have the First Amendment right to say what we want to as well,\u201d Goodwin said. \u201cI don\u2019t agree with them at all, but I would fight for the right to be out here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goodwin said that going forward, politicians must take the complete shutdown of ICE as the first step.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[Opposition] must show their solidarity to get ICE the fuck out of the communities, period,\u201d Goodwin said. \u201cDefund the entire damn thing going forward. It\u2019s just abject cruelty that they are doing to people. They\u2019re picking people off the street, even citizens, but especially if you\u2019re undocumented or if you\u2019re a legal resident, they\u2019re putting you into these facilities, these incarceration camps, with poor water and lack of food to break people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"A San Francisco State University student protests ICE with a sign during a walkout on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (Gwen Murray<\/a> \/ Golden Gate Xpress)<\/p>\n

As the protesters marched beyond Malcolm X Plaza and around campus, the group quickly outpaced 70-year-old Judy Wedekind, MacCullum\u2019s aunt, dressed in her frog costume. Still, through determination to show solidarity with the immigrant community, she caught back up to the group.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was inspired by the Portland frog, which stands for resistance, peaceful resistance against ICE,\u201d Wedekind said. \u201cI\u2019m so excited to see [Generation Z] finally getting involved. Sadly, the situation had to be so terrible, but we all have to get involved now. Like JD Vance said, a lot of old hippies. Well, now we have a lot of young professionals. The movement is starting to catch on with the general public.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Students such as Harrigan felt empowered seeing his peers march alongside him in solidarity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel good that I\u2019m here. I think everyone\u2019s voice matters in this,\u201d Harrigan said. \u201cThere is a sizable amount of people here, and I think it\u2019s good that every one of them thought, \u2018this is important for me to be here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Francisco State University students walkout as part of a rally against ICE at Malcolm X Plaza on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-171708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-sf","12":"tag-sf-headlines","13":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}