Hundreds of people gathered in Downtown Fresno on Monday at the corner of Tulare and O Street to protest the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids that began in Los Angeles on Friday.
BBC reported that the LA protests began after ICE began detaining individuals in predominantly Latino areas. On Saturday, President Donald Trump sent 2,000 members of the National Guard to LA, and on Monday, he sent 2,000 more and 700 Marines.
The protest, which was advertised as an “emergency,” remained peaceful. The protesters chanted, marched in a circle and listened to several speakers and later, members of Banda La Afirmativa came and played music.
Fresno City Council District 3 Vice President Miguel Arias attended the protest in support of the Fresno community.
“As a first-generation immigrant who represents the city of Fresno and this area, the center of all immigrant communities in the Central Valley, I want to make it crystal clear that this city, this community and I, stand with our immigrant community,” Arias said.
According to Immigrant Fresno, immigrants make up 20.7% of Fresno’s population. Immigrants from Mexico, South America and Central America make up 133,386 people out of Fresno’s total population of around half a million.
“We will not allow them to be victimized quietly, we will be loud, and if they want to start arresting people, they can start with us,” Arias said.
Maddison Nield, a newly elected delegate for the Democratic Party representing Assembly District 8, said she mainly got involved with the protests because she is an “out and proud trans woman.”
“This is all coming from the same place of white supremacy and misogyny,” Nield said. “The denial of our Fifth Amendment rights or due process is what’s at play here.”
Nield explained that she feels anger toward higher authorities who “need to do their jobs.”
“This is ridiculous that this is happening, this is ridiculous that we have to be here even protesting this,” Nield said.
While the protest erupted largely due to the LA protests, today’s attendees were also standing against the Trump Administration as a whole.
Victoria Young told The Collegian that she has been protesting at every opportunity that she can.
“I was up all night watching what was going on in LA, I’m originally from LA,” Young said. “It’s breaking my heart.”
Young explained that, for a while, she only saw people protesting who were above the age of 60. Now, she said she’s glad to see younger people in the mix.
“I vowed when I retired [that] I’m gonna do as much as I can and get out and be there as much as I can, ‘cause this is wrong what’s going on,” Young said.
Erik Escovedo, a professor of American Indian Studies at Fresno City College, was there in support of Native Americans.
“We’re just here [to] stand in solidarity with our indigenous relatives that are being persecuted because of their status, according to the federal government,” Escovedo said. “We’re just here to show that support.”
Escovedo said that watching the events in LA has taken a mental toll on him.
“You have to understand that, whether people are documented or undocumented, when they’re here in the United States, they’re entitled to due process, ” Escovedo said.
Rafael Avitia was helping with security at the protest and said that he was there to stand with the people of Los Angeles.
“We are opposing the Trump Administration, we’ve been opposing it, but they really upped the level of, I would say, militarization and attacks on the people,” Avitia said.
Avitia said that the ICE raids are a “slap in the face” to both the community and the country itself.
Many of the people at the protest were not direct immigrants or farm workers, and Avitia explained the reason for that.
“[The farm workers] told us they want to be here but they can’t, they’re afraid, and you can’t blame them,” Avitia said.
As of June 10, USA Today revealed that it cost the Pentagon $134 million to deploy the National Guard and Marines to LA. Tensions remain around the country from both sides, but especially in LA and areas with a large immigrant population.
Read about the protest in Spanish here.
