Education is increasingly morphing into political activism in America’s schools, as teen protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies gain momentum.
And a supposedly “youth-led” leftist group that’s fueled by megadonor money is leading the charge.
Starting in Minnesota high schools, then spreading to schools in Texas, California and Nevada, students in recent weeks are joining school walkouts against Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions.
The walkouts are pushed by the Sunrise Movement, which was founded in 2017 as a climate activist group.
SM grabbed national attention in 2018 when members staged an occupation of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to demand climate-change legislation — and the freshly elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined the sit-in.
Now the group is singing a different tune.
“We can’t pass climate policy under a fascist regime that’s bought out by Big Oil and is literally starting wars on their behalf,” Sunrise asserted in a Jan. 22 Instagram post explaining its pivot.
“Resisting their ICE henchmen is frankly just a clear strategic priority for us.”
As “climate justice” loses cultural traction and immigration enforcement becomes a bigger political flashpoint, left-wing groups like Sunrise are rebranding their protest energy around anti-ICE campaigns to pressure and obstruct Trump’s administration.
A Sunrise Movement student guidebook obtained by Defending Education warns that “no politician can keep their job, no school can run as usual, no business can turn a profit if they side with ICEʼs violence over us.”
That’s a vow to disrupt Americans’ day-to-day lives.
The guide lays out a school-walkout playbook, with step-by-step instructions on recruitment, speeches, chants, flyers, social media engagement and how to “absorb” attendees so they become long-term organizers.
The political mobilization is explicit.
At one point, the guide states that Trump is “waging war” and “getting ready to steal the next election.”
SM calls on students to conduct “mass non-cooperation to halt the authoritarians’ advance” and build “majorities of students and workers at our schools.”
It urges students to take part in ongoing school walkouts: “Weʼre not here to get back to the status quo. We’re here to win a political revolution.”
Group messages and training documents obtained by Defending Education indicate that the Twin Cities Student ICE Response group is receiving Sunrise Movement training.
A “walkout guide” that accompanied a training presentation featured student demands that mirror those from the activist group UNIDOS-MN and the Saint Paul Federation of Educators.
Sunrise materials for an “ICE Safety Training for Twin Cities Metro Students” outline what teens should do if ICE enters school property, while also urging pushback against their schools’ truancy policies.
As students across Minneapolis made plans to participate in a Jan. 23 strike and school walkout “to shut down ICE,” the SM Twin Cities chapter held Zoom meetings for them, warning that “Minnesota is under attack, and schools are the frontlines.”
“Our classmates are teargassed, kidnapped or missing,” its sign-up form for students claimed.
“Trump is experimenting on us to see how far he can take his authoritarian agenda.”
On walkout day itself, SM hosted a “Mass Student Meeting” for high schoolers from across the metro area “to connect, learn our rights, and build student power to kick ICE out of Minnesota.”
Civics, it seems, now means cutting class for a cause.
At Defending Education, we’ve reported on how K-12 schools nationwide are increasingly facilitating activities and clubs centered on social justice activism.
Sunrise organizes and supports student hubs with backing from organizations such as the Ford Foundation, the Tides Foundation and the Windward Fund.
It’s also gotten help from the National Education Association, the powerful national teachers’ union, whose President Becky Pringle has joined multiple Sunrise Movement events laying out a “Roadmap to Political Revolution.”
The goal: “mass disruption.”
“Students everywhere must show up in solidarity with Minneapolis,” Sunrise urged on Instagram.
Activists say they’re “fighting fascism,” but their aim is something else entirely: dismantling Western cultural norms and eroding the institutions that hold society together — like orderly conduct and meritocratic standards.
The leftist playbook is clear, cold and alarmingly effective.
Recruit young people into activism while they’re still in high school, and funnel them into college where the messaging intensifies.
Then send them into the world as citizens trained to see revolution, not reform, as the goal.
Kendall Tietz is an investigative reporter at Defending Education, a national grassroots group that aims to restore nonpartisan education for all students.
https://nypost.com/2026/02/05/opinion/how-a-protest-pivot-gets-the-lefts-hooks-into-our-kids/
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