For street vendor Edward Carrillo, the protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles struck close to home.
Carrillo owns Salsa Sazona, which he created last year largely to honor a salsa business his parents started when they were undocumented immigrants. That business is gone now, but he wanted to honor his past and his heritage.
“I knew that that was something that was part of my family's history so that was the intention behind it,” he said. “Just to hold on to my roots, the value of food and how it brings people together.”
Salsa Sazona owner Edward Carrillo and his mother, Becky Carrillo.(Courtesy/Edward Carrillo)
His parents were undocumented for much of his childhood, and he remembers translating for them and even helping them study for their citizenship while he was still in elementary school.
“Vivid memories like that that maybe not other kids experienced and just seeing other family members go through challenges of maybe not being able to travel outside of the country or being fearful of going to work.,” he added. “[There's been] times where my dad was at work and ICE showed up. He was able to leave the situation safely, but it's just kind of scary and my heart goes out to everyone in L.A. right now.”
Although his parents are citizens now, he still has many undocumented friends in Sacramento whom he said are fearful and hesitant to go out because of what's happening in Los Angeles.
Following a weekend of largely peaceful protests against ICE raids mixed with vandalism and looting, the Trump administration has deployed National Guard troops and Marines to the city.
“With the current administration that's in office, I think it's especially scary because it's just not knowing what's going to happen tomorrow, not knowing what's going to happen today,” he said. “Especially with social media. Just trying to get the facts can be hard to navigate already.”
He called on local elected officials and the Sacramento community to find different avenues for safety for undocumented immigrants who are currently scared of what's to come.
“It would be nice to hear from our officials, to hear what their plans are as far as what we can do collectively to support those out in the community that may feel targeted because of what's going on right now,” he said.
Elyse Doyle-Martinez is a Woodland-based advisor for Brown Issues, a Latino youth leadership development organization.
“The scale at which it happened in LA starting on Friday was something that we haven’t seen up here, but I think we absolutely have to be prepared for something like that,” she said.
When it does, she’s worried that despite being a sanctuary city, there’s little that local law enforcement or schools can do to prevent federal agents from conducting raids.
“To say that they won’t work with ICE, that they won’t call ICE, is really all that they can do,” she said. “Anything beyond that is just not true.”
She’s an art teacher for the Woodland Joint Unified School District. Despite the school district saying there is a set of procedures it has to go through if federal agents show up to one of its schools, she’s not sure that will prevent anything.
“They have to have a warrant, they have to have names on there, they can’t just freely roam that campus,” she said. “But on one hand, if they do have all that documentation, they can do what they want. They can go into those classrooms and they can remove whoever they need to.”
She’s in a group text chain with other advisors across California that share information on alleged ICE activity. However, she acknowledged that many reports of ICE activity can be rumors, referring to earlier this year when several claims were disproven.
“You don’t want to stoke fear in people where there isn’t something to be afraid of, but it’s never a bad thing to be prepared,” she said.
She encouraged anyone suspicious of ICE activity to reach out to NorCal Resist’s hotline number — 916-282-0256.
“You can text pictures if you do think that you’ve seen ICE and they will send people out to confirm that,” she said.
Rumors and fear
Giselle Garcia, a volunteer with NorCal Resist, said her organization’s rapid response hotline has received a “massive increase in calls.” Since Monday, she said 200 calls have been made.
“Our team is running around like chickens without a head all over, not just in Sacramento County, but north of Chico and all the way east towards Nevada City,” she said. “Fortunately, a lot of those reports have been either private security guards or local law enforcement, but we think it’s really important to continue to verify every location that is sent so that people can at least feel relief when we say, ‘No, this is not ICE.’”
Although the organization, which also keeps track of detainees and helps get them in touch with volunteer attorneys, hasn’t confirmed any local raids recently, she said there have been dozens of confirmed arrests this year by federal immigration agents in the region.
Garcia said getting accurate information regarding immigrants in detention facilities is difficult because of a lack of communication.
“ICE itself is not necessarily collaborating with us and our efforts to help support immigrants who are detained,” she said. “In fact, they do everything to separate individuals from our network.”
Immigrant rights advocates and supporters participate in a rally Monday, Dec. 2, 2024, at the State Capitol in Sacramento.(Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio)
Instead, NorCal Resist and similar organizations have relied on volunteer attorneys from nonprofit organizations and communication with the community, typically family members of those detained, to get an idea of how many people are being detained.
Other tactics she’s noticed locally is transferring individuals as swiftly as possible, which she believes is to separate them from local legal services. She referenced a Venezuelan man who was detained in Sacramento this April while changing his address at an immigration office.
“When he was arrested, we were plugged in. We sent a volunteer attorney, we helped support this individual, we mobilized on social media,” she said. “Within three hours of detention, they immediately transferred him to a facility to distance him from that volunteer attorney, to distance him from us as a network and the support we were trying to give.”
Garcia said the rumors and misinformation regarding ICE activity spread on social media have been devastating for the community.
“It’s cruel and it is creating a sense of panic that families are calling and saying, ‘I’m too scared to drop my daughter off at school,’” she recounted. “I’m too scared to go to work, I’m too scared to go to the grocery store, I don’t want to go to my doctor’s appointment, and I’m definitely scared now to do my ICE check-ins or go to my hearings.”
She asked anyone who sees potential ICE activity to reach out to NorCal Resist’s hotline before posting anything on social media.
Keeping track of detainees
Javier Hernandez is the executive director of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice. His organization supports and advocates for immigrants in southern California, specifically in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
He said what’s happening in Los Angeles still affects them in the Inland Empire because many of the undocumented immigrants picked up by ICE end up at the Adelanto detention facility, which is the largest privately run immigrant detention facility in the state.
The coalition,similar to NorCal Resist, operates a rapid response hotline, keeps track of detainees and helps them connect with volunteer attorneys.. But that’s been difficult for Hernandez and his team because they have not been told by ICE or the detention facility how many detainees from Los Angeles are there.
“They have yet to be able to speak to an attorney,” he stressed. “We have no information on who these folks are. So for the federal government to make this big assumption that ‘We’re going after criminals.’ We’re not necessarily seeing that on the ground.”
Hernandez is worried that the federal government is “dragging their feet” in hopes that some of these individuals will sign deportation documents without due process.
“These arrests are happening at work sites,” he added. “What if they can start getting into schools and taking children from schools? What if they start coming into our places of worship? What if they start coming into our clinics? They have said they will do that.”
He’s referring to a Department of Homeland Security policy added in January that allows immigration authorities to enter schools, healthcare facilities and places of worship to conduct arrests.
The coalition runs a rapid response hotline for people to report ICE activity around the Inland Empire. However, he said the hotline has become “a 24-hour operation” in the last few days, with calls coming from all over the state and country.
He said many people call to report ICE activity or to ask if something like this is possible to happen where they are. Hotline responders connect them with other rapid response hotlines in their communities.
He noted that his coalition has been in constant contact with other hotlines across the state, including NorCal Resist, to share the tactics they're seeing from ICE.
“This is where we communicate with each other, just letting each other know, ‘Hey, there might be folks that are going to be detained in these different facilities,’ and if they are, we just need to communicate with each other so that we know that we are finding folks that have been essentially disappeared by this administration, and that we’re keeping track of those folks,” he said.
Local response
As Sacramento prepares for this weekend's No Kings protest and rally — a nationwide day of defiance against the Trump administration — the Sacramento Police Department said in a statement their role during demonstrations is to ensure public safety while safeguarding people's right to peacefully assemble to express their views.
They noted that California state law, under Senate Bill 54, prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies from enforcing federal civil immigration laws, meaning the police department does not participate in civil immigration enforcement.
“The department will continue to provide high-quality service to every member of our community, regardless of immigration status,” staff stated.
They encouraged anyone who wants to learn more about Sacramento's sanctuary ordinance to visit the city's website for more information.
Sacramento State University has immigration-related information and resources available on its website meant to provide guidance on responding to immigration officers and share information about people's rights.
The website noted that most of the campus is open to the general public, meaning federal immigration enforcement officers can be present on the campus quad and walkways.
“However, immigration officers cannot enter areas that are not open to the general public, such as residence halls, classrooms while class is in session, confidential meeting rooms and spaces or employee offices unless the officer presents a valid judicial warrant or declares that exigent circumstances exist,” the website stated.
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