Thousands protest against ICE at Dolores Park in San Francisco on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026.Adam Pardee/For SFGATE
By Olivia Hebert,News ReporterJan 30, 2026 (SFGate.com)
Students poured into Dolores Park on Friday afternoon, sporting baggy pants, backpacks and protest signs as they joined thousands of workers and organizers for a national day of action demanding Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents be removed from communities nationwide. A drum circle pulsed through the crowd — with maracas shaking and a cowbell clanging — as teens waved signs bearing cheeky slogans like, “We are skipping our lessons to teach you one,” “End the ICE age,” and “Sex is good but have you ever tried f—-ing the system?” Cars passing the park honked in support while chants of “Minnesota to the Bay ICE ICE go away” rippled across the hillside, driven by impassioned local labor and student organizers from a makeshift stage near the base of the park.
The San Francisco rally was held at 1 p.m., and was the result of separate efforts by city students and the Bay Area chapter for the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). The demonstration was in solidarity with mass protests in Minnesota, where students and workers launched a statewide shutdown under the banner of “no work, no school, no shopping” — a call to temporarily halt businesses, classrooms and city life in light of not only the detainment of U.S. citizens and noncitizens at the hands of ICE, but the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by agents deployed in Minneapolis.
“The courage of the people of Minnesota last week, standing up to ICE and getting in the streets in the hundreds of thousands and shutting down the city in a general strike, we’re taking that as the blueprint around the country right now,” PSL organizer Sanika Mahajan, 26, told SFGATE. “They’re not going to stop with Minneapolis, and neither are we.”
Protesters stand on a traffic light pole where the street signs have been replaced by stickers protesting against ICE at Dolores Park in San Francisco, Calif. on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026.Adam Pardee/For SFGATE
Tens of thousands converged to take part in one of many demonstrations happening nationwide on the same day. Mahajan described the rally as part of a broader effort to disrupt daily life in response to escalating federal immigration enforcement.
Mahajan also pointed to past organizing in the region — including efforts to block immigration raids, and shut down ICE offices and court buildings — as proof of what coordinated action can achieve.
“That’s the power of the Bay Area,” Mahajan said. “That’s the power of working people here and around the country, and we know we can do it again.”
Other organizations joined the call to action, including Refuse Fascism, whose members circulated through the crowd with flyers and impassioned speeches via megaphones. Sully, a 19-year-old Oakland resident with the group, said they were drawn to join the rally to encourage people to protest against the federal government’s increasing abuses of power and disregard for human rights.
“It’s going to be the people in power,” Sully said. “We need to mobilize millions in the streets day after day, in massive, sustained protest.”
By noon, well before the scheduled start time, students from high schools, colleges and middle schools across San Francisco and the greater Bay Area had already begun arriving at the park. Students made up a visible share of the rally, many emboldened to make their voices heard after their peers posted calls to action circulate on social media, one post being from Amiko Muscat, 17, a senior at San Francisco’s School of the Arts.
Muscat told SFGATE that she helped mobilize students after watching coverage of the events in Minnesota and feeling frustrated by what she described as online engagement without action.
“Posts are one thing, but getting out in the streets is another,” Muscat said. “When people care deeply about something, they’re going to show up for it.”
For Muscat, Friday marked her first time organizing a protest. She said she initially expected a small turnout from her own school.
“It literally took one post,” Muscat said. “I thought maybe 20 people from my school were going to show up.”
Muscat said students from multiple campuses coordinated independently, relaying information through group chats and social media as they walked out of class. She described the student turnout as a collective effort rather than the work of one organizer.
“This wasn’t just me,” she said. “This was everybody.”
She said many students felt compelled to act despite not being directly affected by immigration enforcement themselves. “When you have the privilege to be able to speak up, that’s when you need to,” Muscat said.
Other students echoed that sense of urgency. Sienna Magenau, 17, a student at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, said she and classmates had been learning about recent immigration enforcement actions through a school-based social justice program and decided to attend together to show “youth support.” Meanwhile, Desmond Cimo, 16, a student at Wallenberg High School who was hanging off of a Dolores Street sign with the slogan, “Abolish ICE,” told SFGATE that he’d joined the walk out with friends from other schools. He encouraged his fellow students to mobilize.
“Be safe and be smart, but do come,” he said. “We need as many people [as possible]. We need to get these fascists out of our f—-ing system.”
Longtime Bay Area resident, Judy, 70, attended the rally wearing an inflatable frog suit inspired by Portland-based ICE protests. She said she felt compelled to attend despite other obligations.
“There’s nothing more important than this,” Judy said. “People are being killed. People are being injured and brutalized. They’re taking away all of our rights .”
Judy, who said she has lived in the Bay Area her entire life, said recent events motivated her to continue protesting.
“This isn’t America anymore,” she said. “Freedom of speech is being squashed. We have to come out.”
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Jan 30, 2026
News Reporter
Olivia Hebert is a news reporter at SFGATE, where she covers breaking news and a diverse array of topics. Before joining SFGATE, she wrote lifestyle news for the Independent, often exploring the intersection of health, technology, pop culture, travel and style. She’s also written entertainment news for Collider, Distractify and StyleCaster. You can reach her at olivia.hebert@sfgate.com.
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