Campus walkout protests ICE actions
By Amber McCain
Photo by Lizzy Hahn
Protesters drew and painted their signs before walking to the temperature sign.
A campus walkout on Friday, Jan. 30 drew about 110 participants during its peak protesting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, citing concerns about deportations, deaths tied to ICE operations and immigration enforcement.
“They need to go,” Savannah Aduenda, a UAF student, said about ICE. “I have friends who are at risk of deportation.”
The group walked from Murie Building down the hill to the temperature sign, holding signs as part of the national shutdown.
Another student, Vivian Palmer, criticized ICE’s role and funding.
“If we’re not united, we’ll fall. We really lost our humanity with the past few administrations, I wanna see a return to humanity.” Palmer said. “We need to hold the government accountable for unleashing an unconstitutional police force. The amount of violence does not fit the crime.”
Photo by Jonathan Wasilewski
Bundled up and braving the cold, students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks take part in a nationwide shutdown, protesting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations and deaths tied to ICE operations and immigration enforcement.
Organizers said the walkout was meant to raise awareness and show solidarity with other protests around the country.
Photo by Jonathan Wasilewski
Left to right, Francie Eufemio, Lilli Lesperance Solomonson, Lily Downing, Sable Scotton stand outside of Murie holding their demonstration signs during the UAF walkout on Jan. 30, 2026.
“We’re speaking out against the unlawful extrajudicial killings of ICE. At the very least trying to bring awareness to that in solidarity with the ICE out movement in Minnesota right now. ,” said one of the organizers, Rei Suzuki-Smith.
Suzuki-Smith said they were born and raised in Fairbanks. A sophomore at UAF who works as a student employee in the Nanook Technology Service Desk, Suzuki-Smith said it’s “embarrassing, uncomfortable, and scary that the leadership we elected are actively supporting and funding this.”
“Today we are walking out of class, trying not to spend money or go to the store in protest of what’s happening with ICE,” fellow student Eva Morris said. Morris was dressed in a clown costume she has previously used in other protests as a way to say, “these people are not clowns, because I’m a clown.”
“Clowns are funny, clowns make people laugh. These people are monsters. These people aren't clowning around, they're killing people,” Morris added.
Faculty members also joined the walkout. Ingrid Johnson, associate professor, said she attended in a personal capacity.
“Well, I'm mostly walking in solidarity with the students,” Johnson said. “I think it's really great that they are out, that they're learning to exercise the First Amendment, that they are paying attention to the news, that they feel empowered to do this.”
Martin Truffer, a professor in the physics department, said he was concerned about ICE’s actions nationwide. He added that he feels somewhat “personally offended how ICE has become a bad thing since" that’s what he studies. “I like ice a lot, so I’m really sad to see ICE becoming a bad thing.”
“We have basically thugs walking the street and killing people that are innocent and are not even being investigated for that,” Truffer said. “This is just extremely worrying to me. I never thought I would see something like this in America.”
Additional reporting done by Lizzy Hahn and Jonathan Wasilewski.