College students across the United States marched and rallied Wednesday, urging administrators to protect students and employees against immigration action under a Donald Trump presidency.
The protesters are calling for their campuses to be named “sanctuary campuses,” safe spaces for students here illegally, barring authorities from asking for documentation or turning over such students to federal authorities.
Rallying supporters on social media with the hashtag #SanctuaryCampus, organizers said actions were planned at more than 80 universities, including Princeton, New York University, Duke in North Carolina, and the University of California in Los Angeles.
Nearly 3,000 high school students in Washington, D.C., walked out of their classes Tuesday and marched across the city, making stops at Trump International Hotel, the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial.
Students chanted, “We reject the president-elect” and held signs that read, “Please do not cut my education funding” and “Ban Bannon, not Muslims.”
Stephen Bannon, the president-elect’s top strategist, headed the Breitbart News website, which he once described as “the platform of the alt-right,” an anti-establishment platform that occasionally has been home to white nationalist and anti-Semitic vitriol.
Other anti-Trump protests have been held in recent days throughout the United States.
Activist groups are looking ahead to a march the day after Inauguration Day in late January, with many people on Facebook indicating their intent to fly to Washington to take part.
