Brooklyn, NY, June 13th–The struggle didn’t end on May Day – it intensified. In the early morning hours, the day before the nation-wide No Kings rallies, school workers, parents, students, and teachers on our campus gathered again, this time with even sharper chants, “Genocide means…we gotta fight back,” “How do you spell fascist? I! C! E!” and a clearer line: “From Palestine to Mexico to NYC, stop attacks on our youth!”
These weren’t just slogans. They were declarations of resistance, of solidarity, of the fight ahead.
While the bosses ramp up Immigration Customos Enforcement (ICE) raids and the state grows more fascist by the day, our response has been clear: we will not stand idly by as our students and their families are terrorized.
A day of defiance
The morning rally was just the beginning. That same afternoon, we held a second rally—this time timed so students could see their teachers standing up, speaking out, and fighting back. This was no symbolic gesture. We wanted our students to see that the fight isn’t theoretical. It’s in the hallways, in our classrooms, and on the front steps of our schools.
On the same day, a student group led by a member of the Progressive Labor Party distributed hundreds of fliers, connecting students with our school’s immigrant solidarity group. The flier offered real, material help and guidance on how to switch in-person immigration check-ins to virtual ones to avoid being kidnapped by ICE.
We will never forget Dylan Lopez Contreras
Between the two rallies, we called on students to write letters of solidarity to Dylan Lopez Contreras, the Bronx high school student violently taken by ICE at a routine hearing earlier this spring. Dylan's case is not isolated—it’s emblematic of the racist violence ICE inflicts daily, especially on Black, Latin, and immigrant youth. Our message is simple: We won’t forget Dylan, and we won’t be silent as ICE disappears any more of our students.
In composing the letters and organizing support, our students showed leadership, clarity, and courage. Many asked how they could do more. Some confided their worries about their families’ situations that they had previously been afraid to reveal or ask for support. Various classrooms now sport “Free Dylan!” on their white boards. This is what working-class political education looks like: students learning to act together, as a class, in solidarity with each other.
A growing fightback
This historical moment is part of a larger, coordinated offensive by the ruling class. From Gaza to Rikers Island, the U.S. ruling class, under Democrats and Republicans alike, is waging war on the working class, and especially its most vulnerable members. ICE raids are only one piece of a growing fascist strategy: sow fear, divide workers, and crush resistance before it grows.
Spreading fear and division is not working.
We are building a new normal in our schools—one where teachers fight back, students lead, and parents organize. One where political struggle is part of the school day. One where the walls that divide us—between schools, between staff and students, between citizens and immigrants—start to fall. The bosses want us to be afraid. They want us to be quiet. They want us to believe we’re alone. We are not.
Toward a communist future
We are clear-eyed about the difficulties of the road ahead. The system will never protect us because it was never built for us. It was built to protect profit, property, and power. Our job is to tear it down and build something new in its place: a communist world where no one is “illegal,” where ICE doesn’t exist, and where the working class holds power.
The fight is far from over. But we are more organized, more determined, and more united than ever. Join us. The future is ours to fight for.
