Wearing white shirts and chanting slogans, hundreds marched through Los Angeles on Wednesday morning, Dec. 18, to condemn President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to carry out mass deportations when he takes office.
Demonstrators gathered on the cobblestone streets of Olvera Street for the march, which was timed to International Migrants Day on Wednesday.
The event went from Olvera Street, the popular tourist spot, to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Los Angeles. The crowd chanted “What do we want? Justice, when do we want it? Now” in English and Spanish. It also chanted “Family power,” “Immigrants are welcome here” and “sí se puede.”
Rally organizers demanded federal protections for undocumented immigrants and those with temporary protections. They hoped the event would highlight the voices of undocumented immigrants, their contributions to the country and raise awareness of calls to broaden legal protections and pathways to citizenship.
“Today we uplift the power of unity and the power of love,” Angélica Salas, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights’ executive director, told the crowd. “Today we stand up against hate and division … Today we recognize that people are forced to migrate, they’re forced to leave their homes, and we must do something.”
She blasted what she called Trump’s “hate” and said “his policies, they’re not going to stop us.”
While demonstrators on Wednesday criticized Trump’s policies, others said the country needs precisely the stricter border policies that the incoming president advocates.
“We need to have a super secure border,” Assemblyman Bill Essayli, R- Corona, said Tuesday, Dec. 17. “We need to have a legal pathway for people to apply. But at the same time, the United States cannot take in all 7 billion people of the whole world that want to come here.”
Trump has also said he’d invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to deport noncitizens from a country with which the U.S. is at war. And he has promised to end birthright citizenship. People with temporary citizenship, such Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protected Status, worry they could be targeted as well. Some worry about the economic impact of a mass deportation given that undocumented immigrants make up a large portion of the agricultural sector, leaders said.
One rally attendee, Pasadena resident Hannah Castro, who works with the Filipino Workers Center in Los Angeles, is herself an immigrant from the Philippines who came to the U.S. in her 20s.
“In these moments, it’s really important to let people know that you are not alone and we are all safer and stronger together,” Castro, 40, said.
“We are a community of immigrants, and this country is built by immigrants,” she said, adding that immigrants are “the soul” of the nation.
“We bring value to the workforce. We bring value to the community with what we do and who we are.”
Long Beach resident Robert Collins, part of the nonprofit Community Coalition that works in South Los Angeles, came to support the cause.
“When you think of immigrants, the news makes you think that it’s only a border thing, but it’s a people thing, from all different nationalities,” said Collins, 63. “We all live together.”
Marsha Mitchell, a senior communications director for Community Coalition, said her organization took part to “protect our undocumented brothers and sisters.”
“When this administration comes in, they’re going to dismantle a lot of things,” Mitchell, 57, said. “A lot of the issues that we’ll be facing include economic development and education.”
Like Collins, Mitchell wanted to highlight that immigration policies aren’t “just a brown issue.”
“It’s a Black issue, a brown issue, an Asian issue,” the Los Angeles resident said. “We want to make sure that we are protecting all who are facing undocumented status.”
Illegal immigration has continued as a major issue since the election.
In California, two days after the Nov. 5 election, Gov. Gavin Newsom called for a special session to strengthen California’s legal resources to protect immigrant families.
The Los Angeles City Council plans to discuss an initiative that would bar the use of city resources or personnel to assist in the federal enforcement of immigration laws.
Southern California has a high undocumented population.
In 2021, nearly 3 million residents across Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties were undocumented or lived in a household with an undocumented family member, with 1.9 million residing in Los Angeles, according to the California Immigrant Data Portal.
Groups at the rally included the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, a leading members of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement Coalition. The Humane Immigrant Rights group last month hosted protests and rallies in Los Angeles and San Bernardino and has been pushing for better protections for immigrants.
Starting Monday, Dec. 16, the Fair Immigration Reform Movement Coalition — a national network with 38 members in 32 states — hosted an Immigrants Rise Up week of action to coincide with International Migrants Day. States including California, Colorado, Arkansas put on events during the week, including news conferences, know-your-rights training sessions, town halls, concerts, rallies and protests.
Essayli, the Inland Empire assemblymember, said he comes from a family of immigrants who legally entered the U.S., Essayli is a supporter of legal migration.
“A lot of people want to enter the United States,” Essayli, 39, said. “A lot of people want to come into the country and are desperate to do that, and people are taking advantage of them. The process right now is not good, a lot of them are being human trafficked, extorted to pay lots of money. A lot of these kids are being sexually abused. This isn’t a good system.”
Stricter border policies and more secure borders will reduce these issues, Essayli said.
“I feel like Americans are very reasonable and very generous,” he said. “If and when we secure the border and remove all the criminal immigrants, I suspect there will be a bigger appetite to figure out what to do with the rest of the immigrants that are here unlawfully, but the other has to come first.”
Essayli said Trump has always prioritized the deportation of criminal undocumented immigrants, those that illegally enter the country and have committed a crime.
“The state of California is creating this situation that I think is going to make it a lot harder for people and law enforcement when these operations begin,” he said. “But that’s by design, the state of California is doing that by design.”
The Associated Press and Staff Writer Hanna Kang contributed to this report.