El Cajon residents and others from all across San Diego braved afternoon sun and temperatures approaching the 90s Saturday in support of the region’s immigrant community — and to demand that ICE be removed from the city.
Hundreds of people took to the streets in El Cajon to take part in the Marcha Para Immigrantes Communidad Rally on Saturday afternoon.
Immigration march in El Cajon. (Photo courtesy Joe Orellana)Organizers, who included groups such as Fuerza Hispana de El Cajon, Latinos En Acción, and Unión del Barrio, coordinated the march in order to protest raids and family separations in the region and across Southern California that have ramped up under the Trump administration, which they say perpetuates a legacy of inhumane laws that criminalize and villainize immigrant communities.
Speakers said that El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells and the El Cajon City Council should resign after passing a controversial immigration enforcement resolution earlier this year declaring El Cajon “not a sanctuary city,” and greenlighting police to work with federal immigration authorities.
Protesters said that the resolution is in direct violation of SB 54, a California state law that prohibits cities from turning anyone over to federal immigration authorities unless they have been convicted in court of certain felony crimes.
El Cajon was also the site of a militarized workplace raid in March, during which fifteen people were arrested at San Diego Powder & Protective Coatings.
Immigration march in El Cajon. (Photo courtesy Joe Orellana)More than 300 protesters carrying signs decrying President Donald Trump’s attempts to reshape the constitution, and waving an assortment of flags from countries such as Mexico, Palestine, and Iraq, made their way down Main Street.
Evidence of the city’s diverse community could be seen with a myriad of storefronts and businesses displaying signs in Spanish, Arabic, Pashto, and English.
El Cajon is notable for its immigrant population. Roughly a third of its 103,291 residents were born outside the United States, and 36.6% of the city’s population identifies as Hispanic or Latino.
The city is also home to vibrant Middle Eastern and North African communities, particularly Iraqi Americans and Iraqi immigrants of Arab, Chaldean, and Assyrian descent. At least 15,000 of its residents identify as Chaldean, making El Cajon home to one of the largest Chaldean communities outside Iraq, second in the United States only to Detroit, Michigan.
For Crystal Abrahim, a lifelong resident of El Cajon, Saturday’s march hit particularly close to home given her family’s own journey to the United States.
“I am a product of immigrants, my parents came here to the U.S.”, Abrahim said. “I’m Chaldean, we’re a Christian minority from Iraq, and I was raised Catholic. It’s in my core to love my neighbors, and this is so close to me, because these are my brothers and sisters. Our community is being terrorized, they’re being speared. And we need to come together, stand up, and let them know that we’re going to protect them as much as we can.”
Mairene Branham of the nonprofit Latinos En Acción told the crowd that out of the nearly 500 cities in California, only two — Huntington Beach and El Cajon — have officially declared themselves as not sanctuary cities. “Not only that, our city council went even further to violate California law to say that our El Cajon police department can actually collaborate with ICE on operations,” Branham said.
Immigration march in El Cajon. (Photo courtesy Joe Orellana)Local attorney John Gomez, who grew up in El Cajon, agreed. “This city has been described as a mini United Nations,” he said. “But today Main Street is empty as good, hard-working people are scared to come outside.”
Ryan Fan is advocacy and campaign manager of the Majdal Center, an El Cajon-based advocacy group and community center for Arab-Americans. He decried the use of military tactics and weaponry being used by ICE and local police departments.
“When I talk to other community leaders and friends from different ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds, I keep hearing the same thing over and over: our communities are afraid,” Fan said. “They’re afraid to go to school, to go to work, to attend religious services, even just to step outside to go get groceries.”
As Saturday’s rally drew to a close, Violet, a member of Yo Soy El Cajon, a group of community leaders and advocates in East County, closed the afternoon’s demonstration with a show optimism, vowing to protect immigrant communities not just in El Cajon, but throughout San Diego.
“We hear you, we feel your pain, and we will continue to fight for you,” she said. “Together, we are strong; together El Cajon stands with immigrants.”
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