From Oakland to Gilroy, students and workers staged walkouts and rallies Monday to protest the Trump Administration’s threats of mass deportation that have instilled such deep fear in the Bay Area’s immigrant communities that some parents are keeping their children home from school.
The “Day without an Immigrant” protests Monday were the latest of several demonstrations supporting the Bay Area’s large immigrant community since Trump took office for the second time two weeks ago, including two protests in East San Jose over the weekend and a rally last week on the UC Berkeley campus.
“We’re geared up,” said Rebeca Armendariz, a board member of CARAS, an immigrant rights nonprofit in Gilroy, where a number of downtown Mexican restaurants closed in solidarity with the day’s protest. “We’ve been through this before with Trump 1.0. We know that we have to have services and funding and volunteers on the ground to share information, to help people. And those right now are immigrant families and workers because they’re under attack.”
At Alum Rock School District in East San Jose, attendance already had plunged 12% last week when children stayed home with parents afraid of deportation, and classrooms continued to empty out Monday for participation in the protests, officials there said.
In West Contra Costa Unified School District, a nearly 30,000-student district covering Richmond and Pinole where Hispanic or Latino students are in the majority, so many teachers and staff took the day off to protest that substitutes were called to fill in at one elementary and two high schools in Richmond, officials said.
At San Jose City Hall, more than 60 Lincoln High School students marched more than two miles to the mayor’s office at noon Monday to voice their outrage at Trump ending a policy prohibiting federal ICE agents from making arrests at public schools.
“I’m really proud of our group,” said Brianna Benedek, 16. “I’m really proud of everyone. It really shows how much you care, and that you’re willing to get in trouble.”
The students continued on to East San Jose to join a protest outside Target, where agents for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency staged operations last week in pursuing a small number of immigrants with pre-existing deportation orders.
At the rally, a speaker played music as people danced and sang along, many holding flags and signs reading “no one is illegal” and “melt ICE.”
“When MAGA says Make America Great Again, we are America,” said Janessy Yanezdo, 20, from San Jose. “We make America great again. We contribute to society, not just people legally here, also illegally as well.”
Throughout his campaign and since his inauguration, Trump has pledged to deport millions of immigrants living in the U.S. without permission — of which there are an estimated 13 million.
“Over the last 4 years, the prior administration invited, administered, and oversaw an unprecedented flood of illegal immigration into the United States,” said a White House executive order issued the day Trump took office, “in violation of longstanding Federal laws.”
But so far it appears ICE agents have arrested only a few in the Bay Area, and most of those have had pre-existing deportation orders in place.
“Just because it’s not happening in San Jose doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen in the future,” San Jose City Councilman Peter Ortiz of East San Jose said Monday. “Our economy on the East Side and throughout the city relies on this population, and the public has really been terrified the last couple of days, and so that’s why the mobilization has happened.”
Trump officials have also said they plan to focus on deporting those with criminal records, which make up close to 650,000 people, according to ICE figures. During Trump’s first term, despite his promises to deport millions, the most ICE deportations made in a single year was 96,000 in 2018, according to ICE.
In the last two weeks, ICE has focused its arrests on Chicago and New York.
ICE has reported more than 8,000 arrests nationally in daily social media reports from Jan. 23 to Jan. 31. Because ICE news releases highlight only a small number of specific arrests that target those with criminal records, it’s unclear whether the thousands of others also have criminal records or deportation orders as well.
In Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood Monday, more than 100 people chanted and waved flags from Latin American countries, inspiring honks and chants from those driving by.
Martha Zarate skipped her hosting job Monday to attend the rally, bringing her six-year-old daughter Gabriella along. As a first-generation American, Zarate said she felt a duty to show up for her family and community and to act as a role model for her daughter.
“I’m so upset,” Zarate said. “I feel like we should be moving forward, and instead of moving forward we’re moving backwards.”
Instead of giving up, though, Zarate said people should continue to advocate for immigrants and others considered under threat by the Trump Administration.
Jose Lagos, an organizer with the activist group By Any Means Necessary who helped organize the Oakland rally, encouraged the public to continue to protest ICE actions.
More rallies are planned later this week at Fruitvale Plaza in Oakland and parking lots at King and Story roads in East San Jose. Protests are planned Wednesday in the capitals of each U.S. state.
“We are not going back to the shadows,” Lagos said. “We’re not afraid. We won’t back down. Oakland is an immigrant town.”