What’s New at NU: Hear the voices of NU students protesting against ICE

Maia Alvarez, Reporter

February 4, 2026

The Daily Northwestern · What’s New at NU: Hear the voices of NU students protesting against ICE

Millions of Americans skipped school, work and shopping altogether to protest on Friday, January 30 against immigration enforcement efforts by the Trump Administration. At Northwestern, students gathered in front of Weber Arch to show their solidarity with the general strike through an “ICE OUT” protest.

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MAIA ALVAREZ: Millions of Americans skipped school, work and shopping to protest on Friday, January 30 against increased immigration enforcement and mass deportation efforts by the Trump administration. At Northwestern, students gathered in front of Weber Arch to show their solidarity with the general strike and the people in Minneapolis.

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MAIA ALVAREZ: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Maia Alvarez. This is What’s New at NU, a podcast about everything from mainstream NU issues and events to those hidden in the nooks and crannies of campus.

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Starting at 9 a.m., students began protesting with handmade cardboard signs with written statements like “ICE OUT” and “no negotiation with fascists,” chanting and banging drums across Sheridan. Throughout the three-hour protest, several student speakers shared poems and speeches, such as Medill junior Vincent Díaz Bonacquisti, who expressed his joy in seeing the crowd of students who came to share their support for local immigrant and refugee communities.

VINCENT DÍAZ BONACQUISTI: The Trump administration is relying on you being too exhausted to organize, too desensitized to violence and too demoralized to believe in the possibility of radical systemic change.

CROWD: Wooo!

Today, we are on a national general strike in solidarity with the people in Minneapolis. That means no work, no school, no purchases. We shut it down.

CROWD: Shut it down!

I mean this when I say it. F—k ice. F—k U.S. nationalism. ¡Y que viva el pueblo!

MAIA ALVAREZ: Earlier in the week, a new Instagram account entitled @startswiththis posted a flyer promoting the “ICE OUT” protest. The account’s biography states it’s meant to represent Northwestern students who refuse to be complicit with Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity, and urges the account’s visitors to call their local representatives.

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MAIA ALVAREZ: A first-year biology and global health student said that because her classes connect to current events, she saw the ICE OUT protest as a great moment to rally with others who want ICE abolished.

FIRST-YEAR BIOLOGY AND GLOBAL HEALTH STUDENT: It’s not some sort of law enforcement that helps protect illegal immigrants. That’s what people are mainly saying. But ICE has been harassing very much, individuals, killing people, destroying families.

[drumming, car honking, cheering]

MAIA ALVAREZ: A second-year physics graduate student said they were particularly motivated to protest due to the November 2025 agreement between Northwestern and the Trump administration to restore frozen federal funding. As part of the agreement, Northwestern must provide the Department of Justice with comprehensive data and disciplinary files for international students involved in campus protests and other policy violations.

PHYSICS GRADUATE STUDENT: There’s a whole section on what it calls national security concerns, which I think is intentionally vague in order to endanger those students’ rights, which, like I said before, gives the federal government access to ask for disciplinary records of international students. So it’s established that Northwestern is going to be collaborating with the federal government to give them data on international students, which of course can be really dangerous for someone in that position.

MAIA ALVAREZ: He said many people he works with daily in his lab are international students and immigrants, and he urges the student body to stand with them.

PHYSICS GRADUATE STUDENT: If we don’t stand up for our fellow students or international students and postdocs, researchers, everyone who’s a mentor at any level, who is international, if we don’t stand up for them, then this institution is worthless.

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MAIA ALVAREZ: A first-year student in the economics Ph.D. program said she became a citizen five years ago, which she said motivates her to exercise her rights for those who can’t.

ECONOMICS PHD student: They have no transparency into what’s going on in their detention centers. They have no accountability to anyone. Their faces are being covered. And I don’t think that there’s a reform that’s possible. I think we need to abolish ICE.

MAIA ALVAREZ: Once the demonstration ended, she said she planned on traveling into downtown Chicago to support the larger city protest. The student said she hopes that passing students join the movement however they can, such as donating to families of people being deported to support their legal fees.

ECONOMICS PHD STUDENT: We can put pressure on our Senate to convey the message that we will not stand by while ICE officers shoot people, while there are deaths in detention centers that have gone uninvestigated. There were 32 people who died in detention last year. There’s been six already this year. So it’s only been like, four weeks. And there’s been six deaths in detention centers. Three people this year have been shot by ICE. So I just hope that we can send the message that we will not stand by and watch this happen.

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MAIA ALVAREZ: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Maia Alvarez. Thanks for listening to another episode of What’s New at NU. This episode was reported and produced by Maia Alvarez. Lexi Newsom also contributed reporting.

The Audio Editor is Ruby Dowling. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Femi Horrall, Yong-Yu Huang and Jonah McClure. The Editor in Chief is Emily Lichty.

Our theme music is “He’s Gonna Come and Get You Baby” by Xennial, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and provided by the Free Music Archive.

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—Evanston cyclists ride in honor of Minneapolis man killed by CBP