{"id":120968,"date":"2026-02-23T04:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T04:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/120968\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T04:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T04:14:08","slug":"uaw-presidential-candidate-will-lehman-denounces-police-attack-on-quakertown-pennsylvania-student-protest-against-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/120968\/","title":{"rendered":"UAW presidential candidate Will Lehman denounces police attack on Quakertown, Pennsylvania student protest against ICE"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man, identified as Quakertown Police Chief Scott McElrree, is seen putting a female student in a chokehold, February 20, 2026.<\/p>\n

Will Lehman, a Mack Trucks worker and candidate for president of the United Auto Workers, has issued a statement condemning the police assault on high school students in\u00a0Quakertown\u00a0who walked out of class last week to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and detentions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI unequivocally condemn the vicious assault carried out by the Quakertown, Pennsylvania police and school authorities against high school students who courageously walked out to oppose the immigration Gestapo and the nationwide raids terrorizing immigrant families,\u201d Lehman declared in a statement posted on his website, WillforUAWPresident.org<\/a>. \u201cWhat took place was an attack on youth exercising their democratic rights, which every worker must oppose.\u201d<\/p>\n

On February 20, several dozen students at Quakertown Senior High School left school and marched in cold rain to protest ongoing ICE raids targeting immigrant families. Video circulating widely on social media shows\u00a0Scott McElree, the borough\u2019s police chief, grabbing students and placing at least one teenage girl in a chokehold. Another officer is seen throwing a student into a planter. Five youth and one adult were reportedly arrested.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was, plain and simple, police brutality against children,\u201d Lehman said. In response to the attack, thousands have signed petitions demanding the resignation of the police chief.<\/p>\n

The police violence in Quakertown is part of a broader pattern. Across the United States, students have been suspended, criminalized and intimidated for protesting ICE deportations, including cases involving classmates or family members who have been detained or disappeared.<\/p>\n

Lehman connected the assault to the wider crackdown on dissent under the Trump administration\u2019s escalating immigration offensive. \u201cChildren cannot learn while living in terror,\u201d he stated. \u201cAuthorities are targeting youth because they understand that young people can inspire workers to stand up and use our social and economic strength to oppose dictatorship and stop Trump\u2019s war against the working class.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Quakertown is located roughly 30 minutes from the Mack-Volvo plant in Macungie, where Lehman works, and from which he is mounting his campaign for UAW president. He emphasized that the struggle of immigrant families and the defense of democratic rights are inseparable from the fight of autoworkers and the broader working class.<\/p>\n

Quakertown High School students peacefully protesting the immigration Gestapo prior to being assaulted by police, February 20, 2026. [Photo: David Stubanas]<\/p>\n

\u201cOur immigrant brothers and sisters work alongside us and their kids go to school with our kids,\u201d Lehman said. \u201cWe must stand shoulder to shoulder just like we need to do at work. An injury to one is an injury to all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lehman also invoked the town\u2019s history. Just over a mile from the high school, freedom seekers once passed through Quakertown on the Underground Railroad. Local abolitionists, including Quaker families, defied the Fugitive Slave Act by opening their homes as safe houses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, as now, the law was invoked to justify the pursuit of working-class people whose only \u2018crime\u2019 was seeking freedom and a better life,\u201d Lehman stated. \u201cThe slavecatchers of that era and the thugs of ICE today serve the same reactionary purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a letter posted Sunday, the Quakertown Community School District presents itself as a neutral arbiter concerned only with \u201csafety,\u201d while distancing itself from the arrests and brutal assault carried out by local police. Yet the letter confirms that administrators coordinated with law enforcement in advance, requested police presence for the walkout, and will again have police on site when students return to school.<\/p>\n

After video showed the police chief placing a teenage girl in a chokehold and officers violently seizing students , the district\u2019s priority is not to defend students\u2019 democratic rights but to reassure parents that law enforcement will maintain order. By emphasizing that students who left campus were \u201cno longer under the district\u2019s custodial control,\u201d the administration attempts to wash its hands of responsibility while deepening collaboration with the same authorities that brutalized them. <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Lehman urged workers to demand that all charges against the Quakertown students and their supporters be dropped immediately and that they be returned to their classrooms with no disciplinary measures. He added, \u201call those violating Constitutional rights, from the police to the Trump administration, must be held accountable.\u201d <\/p>\n

Lehman\u2019s statement situates the defense of the Quakertown students within a broader strategy: the independent mobilization of the working class against the police-state apparatus and the bipartisan political establishment.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeachers, schoolworkers, unionized and non-union workers must form rank-and-file committees to respond to raids, arrests and suspensions,\u201d he said. \u201cOnly an organized working-class movement, acting independently of the pro-corporate union bureaucracies and both big business parties, can abolish ICE and dismantle the police-state apparatus.\u201d<\/p>\n

This call aligns with Lehman\u2019s campaign platform, which centers on abolishing the UAW apparatus and transferring power to workers on the shop floor through democratically controlled rank-and-file committees.<\/p>\n

The events in Quakertown have exposed not only the brutality of local police but the broader climate of repression facing youth and immigrant families. The violent response to a peaceful student protest demonstrates the fear within official circles of any movement that links the defense of immigrants to a wider working-class struggle.<\/p>\n

The defense of democratic rights cannot be left to appeals to local officials or the courts. It requires the conscious intervention of workers\u2014organized independently and armed with a political perspective aimed at dismantling the structures of repression and capitalist exploitation at their root.<\/p>\n

Stay informed. Sign up to our Autoworker Newsletter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man, identified as Quakertown Police Chief Scott McElrree, is seen putting a female student in a chokehold,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[57046,6704,2443,28,30,29,8669,57047,99,5758,57048],"class_list":{"0":"post-120968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-detentions","9":"tag-high-school","10":"tag-ice","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","13":"tag-pennsylvania-news","14":"tag-police-chief","15":"tag-police-violence","16":"tag-protests","17":"tag-quakertown","18":"tag-scott-mcelree"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}