Chanting and holding up signs for about an hour in the blistering cold, students walked out of class on Thursday to protest the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns. 

 “We are speaking for the people that can’t speak up for themselves,” Jaelyn Karwoski, a freshman who organized the protest, told The Beacon. 

The protest came days after rumors surfaced that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had been on campus — a claim university officials later said was unfounded. 

But the possibility that ICE had been here instantly upended WP, as some students rushed early Tuesday to post about it in a campus-wide group chat.

The Beacon published an initial story that morning, based on some of these uncorroborated accounts. 

The fallout has led to campus-wide uproar and prompted a deeper reflection in our newsroom about the influence of social media.

These platforms are helpful in quickly disseminating information, but they can also be “like someone pulling a fire alarm,” WP sociology professor Wendy Christensen told The Beacon. “It could be a real fire, or it could be false.”

WP officials sought to quash the rumors, but the ordeal left students shaken, Miki Cammarata, vice president of student development, told The Beacon. 

Some skipped classes out of fear, others organized against ICE.

“It’s natural to be afraid, even if you think you should have no reason to fear,” Cammarata said Thursday.

How it happened

An Instagram video posted shortly before 10 a.m. Tuesday showed several unmarked vehicles and what appeared to be law enforcement officials wearing face masks surrounding a car in a residential neighborhood in Wayne, a short drive from campus. 

Dan Neville, the man who filmed the video, wrote that one of the individuals was wearing a U.S. Department of Homeland Security vest.

Neville told The Beacon on Friday that a Wayne Police detective told him “none of their units or officers were there.” 

Wayne Police didn’t immediately respond to The Beacon’s requests for comment about whether its officers had been dispatched to or were present Tuesday in the area where Neville had filmed the apparent law enforcement encounter. 

Neville, who works with special needs students in the Latino community, said he wanted to document “what these people have been doing [because] you never know what could happen.” 

“I saw it with my own eyes,” he said. “You never know if they were out there for someone specifically, but it was pretty obvious to me.”

The information began trickling on campus. 

An ICE spokesperson declined to say whether agents conducted enforcement operations in Wayne on Tuesday. 

Around 1 p.m. that day, campus police sent a university-wide alert to students and faculty addressing the reports of federal immigration officials being spotted in the area. 

“University Police are aware there are rumors throughout the campus about the alleged presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on campus,” Charles Lowe, the university’s public safety director, wrote in the message. “University Police have not received any reports of ICE on campus. The only report University Police have received concerned Wayne Township, and it remains unconfirmed.”

ICE sweeps on campuses

After taking office in 2025, President Donald Trump rescinded a longstanding policy that prevented federal immigration raids in so-called “sensitive locations,” such as schools and churches. 

In September, a student at Elgin Community College in Illinois was arrested by federal immigration officers in an on-campus parking lot. 

A group of Minnesota school districts filed a lawsuit this month against DHS, alleging it has broken a promise not to conduct enforcement on or near schools. 

Cammarata said WPU’s existing policies bar federal immigration authorities from entering campus classrooms, residence halls or other areas without warrants. 

And campus police were retrained on how to respond if ICE agents are encountered on campus. Cammarata said students should immediately contact campus police if they see anything suspicious.

“It is not our responsibility to help them do their job,” she said. “It’s our responsibility to require the documentation that’s required for them to detain or engage with members of our community.” 

How students are organizing

Karwoski, a criminal justice major, has created an Instagram, which has gained more than 170 followers in a week. She’s pushing students to continue speaking up against ICE. 

“Stand in what you believe in,” she said.

Several public officials have condemned immigration sweeps across the U.S.

In Minneapolis, where the Trump administration sent a surge of federal immigration agents, Mayor Jacob Frey demanded that ICE “get the f–k out” of the city during a news conference last month following the killing of Renee Good.

The Trump administration said this week it’s pulling back agents and ending the operation in Minnesota.

Meanwhile, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed a sweeping executive order this week barring ICE from using state-owned property for staging grounds and rolled out an online portal where residents can upload videos of ICE encounters. 

As New Jersey grapples with the broader implications of immigration enforcement, the episode on campus underscored how quickly fear and misinformation can spread.

The campus learned a valuable lesson, Christensen said. She hopes students, faculty and the administration rally around The Beacon, understanding student reporters have an integral — and often difficult — role to play in increasingly polarized times.

“Our students are living under extremely stressful conditions,” she said.

Editor’s note: This story, first published online Tuesday before being taken down, has been updated to correct inaccurate reports that ICE was on campus and to provide additional context on how the claim originated. The newsroom has since reviewed its reporting process and is implementing additional verification steps for breaking news, particularly when information originates on social media. Editors said the goal is to ensure speed does not come at the expense of accuracy.