SAN JOSE – Around 50 people gathered Friday afternoon to protest an increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Jose, blasting the agency for making arrests outside courtrooms and in plainclothes and calling on public officials to take action.
“Shut down ICE! Shut down ICE!” the protesters chanted as they walked from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Application Support Center to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office in South San Jose. A man wearing butterfly wings skipped alongside a crowd holding signs that read “no deportations! no border militarization!” and “cruelty is not civilized.”
The protest followed an uptick in ICE activity in San Jose over the past week. ICE agents arrested four people Tuesday in a raid in South San Jose as they arrived for immigration appointments. Agents at the scene said that those arrested had outstanding removal ord}ers.
ICE agents were again present in San Jose Wednesday and made arrests at an immigration office, according to the Santa Clara County Rapid Response Network.
Officials with the federal agency did not respond to multiple requests for comment this week from the Bay Area News Group.
The enforcement and public pushback comes as the Trump administration has ramped up immigration arrests across the country. On Tuesday, ICE made the highest number of arrests in one day in the agency’s history – more than 2,200, NBC News reported.
Several Bay Area cities, including San Jose, were included on a list released by the Department of Homeland Security that accused them of shielding immigrants from federal authorities. The list has since been deleted from the DHS website.
Around 50 people gathered in South San Jose Friday afternoon to protest Immigration and Custom Enforcement's increased arrests in the area over the last week. (Caelyn Pender/Bay Area News Group)Outside the Application Support Center at midday Friday, as a line of people queued to wait for services, the protesters gathered with signs. The protest was planned by the Solidarity and Unity Network, the Silicon Valley Immigration Committee, Human Agenda, Amigos de Guadalupe and the Services, Immigrant Rights And Education Network, according to a press release.
“Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcome here!” the group chanted.
San Jose City Councilmember Peter Ortiz said that he was pleased to stand alongside a group of advocates fighting against ICE, whose work he called “domestic terrorism.”
“They are targeting residents, law-abiding residents for nothing more than simply not having papers or not having citizenship,” he said in his speech. “That’s disgusting. That’s something we see in fascist governments, and it’s happening here in our very own backyards.”
Richard Hobbs, an immigration lawyer, founder of Human Agenda and a coordinator of the Solidarity and Unity Network, called on state and federal authorities to file charges against ICE leaders for exceeding their authority and detaining and jailing people “without probable cause or due process.”
“I’ve been an immigration attorney for 35 years, and I’ve never seen this level of fear in our community,” he said. “As part of the Solidarity and Unity Network, Human Agenda calls on ICE to follow the law, cease its deceptive tactics and release Santa Clara County residents who have been brutalized by ICE locally.”
“We are here today to build power, not panic in the community,” he added. “All of those who care about human rights need to stand up and fight back.”
Uriel Magdaleno, an organizer with the Silicon Valley Immigration Committee, condemned ICE agents for carrying out operations while wearing plainclothes and with their faces covered.
“The immigrants that are being targeted are immigrants who are vulnerable,” he said. “They’re actively seeking people who have been here for less than two years, people who can have expedited deportation.”
San Jose City Councilmember Pamela Campos added that San Jose has been built on a community of immigrants.
“The target has moved on to hard-working families, children in our communities,” Campos said. “Trump’s lies are becoming very clear and very evident that in San Jose and the Silicon Valley, our immigrants are strong, hard working people that provide the biggest benefit to our community by establishing strong, diverse leaders, voices and members of San Jose, a San Jose that is beautiful because of our diversity.”
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“We will not back off or back down. We have a well-earned target on our back from the federal administration, so let’s make sure we show them and remind them every single day why they hate us,” Duong said. “Santa Clara County protects our immigrant communities. We remain committed to protecting the rights, dignity and safety of our undocumented neighbors.
“No one should ever be afraid to go to doctors, to take their children to school, to seek help from county services or go to work.”
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