On March 5, dozens of students from BVN gathered in the flex space before third hour and exited the building, heading towards the track on the west field in a coordinated walkout designed to be a protest against the current activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the Trump administration.
Sophomore Winnie Edquist was one of the organizers of the protest and shared that her problems with ICE do not stem from the concept of deporting those who are here illegally, but rather in the way the government is going about it.
“I, to some extent, agree with it; if you’re here illegally, you should be deported, but the way they’re doing it is inhumane and they’re just deporting people off the streets,” Edquist said.
BVN is not the first school in the area to stage a protest against ICE: Blue Valley High, Olathe Northwest and Lawrence High have all held similar walkouts in 2026. Edquist credited Blue Valley specifically as a motivator for her and fellow walkout coordinator, sophomore Fidel Aguilera.
“I think whenever we saw [Blue Valley] do it and then sort of the backlash that they got, we thought we should do it too,” Edquist said. “I had a lot of friends that went to the Olathe one and I just thought it was really inspiring and it kind of shows that we can do this too.”
One of the major problems at some of the other walkouts has been opposition from those who are supportive of ICE’s activities. At Olathe Northwest, a fight among students led to four people being arrested, and at Blue Valley, protestors and supporters exchanged verbal insults in a tense situation.
Sophomore Zach Reif supports ICE and chose not to participate in the walkout.
“I think they’re doing pretty well, they’re getting illegals out of the country, which is their job,” Reif said. “Just like any other job, you have to do your job and you have to follow your orders.”
One of the major criticisms of ICE has been the January deaths of Minnesota residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Both students expressed concern at the death of the citizens, with Edquist pointing to the incidents as one of the motivators for planning a walkout, and Reif mentioning it as an area he thinks needs to be improved upon.
“Something they could stop doing is killing as many innocents, but overall I think they’re pretty good,” Reif said.
The BVN protest did not turn violent, but there were several Pro-ICE students who showed up with their own signs displaying messages of support for President Donald Trump, which Edquist was not surprised by.
“We’ve gotten even worse threats throughout the last couple weeks,” Edquist said. “I knew they were gonna do this, they told me they were gonna do this.”
Even with the presence of opposing viewpoints and the charged atmosphere, administrators were able to maintain a controlled environment and keep anything from escalating.
“The administrators were super nice about it, there was nothing they [the administrators] could have done to harm us,” Edquist said. “I felt safe, I was happy with how it turned out.
