Roughly 50 demonstrators gathered Saturday morning in Pasadena as a part of a nationwide motion to honor lives misplaced throughout immigration enforcement operations and in detention facilities in the course of the Trump administration.
They wore fliers round their necks, hung with yellow thread, bearing the smiling faces and names of a few of the 75 individuals who have died since January 2025.
“Killed by ICE” was printed above a photograph of every particular person, together with native resident Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, a 52-year-old killed whereas making an attempt to flee immigration brokers who descended on a Residence Depot in Monrovia final 12 months.
The Los Angeles residents, a part of the San Gabriel Foothills Indivisible group, carried American flags and held indicators that learn “No ICE No Struggle” and “Cease ICE Murders.”
“Good morning, Pasadena,” Betsy Hanger, an organizer with the group, boomed right into a megaphone as she walked by means of an intersection. “Honk for democracy. Honk if you need ICE off our streets now.”
A refrain of horns sounded as drivers signaled their assist.
Organizer Andra Clarke held a banner in every hand that learn “Neighbors Say ICE Out.” The signal round her neck carried the identify and photograph of Francisco Gaspar-Andrés, a 48-year-old who died in a Texas detention middle in December.
Heba Turner was amongst protesters demanding justice for these killed by ICE officers.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Instances)
Clarke, 61, mentioned the group has been gathering on the intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Truthful Oaks Avenue each Saturday since March. Final weekend, they celebrated civil rights activist John Lewis.
This Saturday, although, their focus was geared toward ICE.
“Now 75 individuals have died by the hands of ICE,” Clarke mentioned. “We had been initially advised, ‘Oh they’re going to go after the criminals, the people who find themselves the worst of the worst.’ That’s a lie; that isn’t what’s occurring.
“They’re concentrating on communities, they’re concentrating on individuals of shade. It’s fascism. … Anyone who cares about humanity ought to care about what’s occurring.”
Clarke mentioned it hit her arduous when she realized of the 2 current deaths by the hands of ICE.
The occasion was additionally a vigil honoring 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was killed by an ICE agent in Houston on July 7 whereas driving his building crew to a job web site, and Johan Sebastian Guerrero, 25, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Maine throughout a visitors cease earlier this month.
“It’s like, once more? It simply doesn’t finish. It feels prefer it by no means ends — the evil.”
Shortly earlier than midday, Clarke used a megaphone to learn aloud the names of the handfuls who’ve died. After every identify learn, Hanger struck a singing bowl, the vibrations sounding out within the nook the place they stood. At instances, she learn “unidentified man” or “4 unidentified ladies.”
Subsequent to them was a poster board with a photograph of Daphy Michel, a 31-year-old lady discovered unresponsive at a bus shelter in Pittsburgh after ICE launched her “into chilly winter situations and no look after psychological well being episodes or discover to relations.”
“Let’s take a second of silence for all those that had been taken,” Clarke mentioned, bowing her head.
“It’s like, once more? It simply doesn’t finish. It feels prefer it by no means ends — the evil,” mentioned Andra Clarke, an organizer for San Gabriel Foothills Indivisible.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Instances)
Amongst these gathered to pay attention was Leticia Lopez, a 65-year-old South Pasadena resident whose voice trembled as she talked in regards to the impression of listening to about one other arrest or dying tied to enforcement operations.
“It will get me to the core,” she mentioned, placing her chest. “It’s not getting any higher, it’s getting worse. I simply really feel like I must do one thing.”
Lopez, who wore a shirt that learn “Immigrants will not be criminals however the president is,” mentioned her mom and grandmother had been forcefully repatriated from Arizona to Mexico.
Her mom, who was raised in Mexico, later met her father there. He moved to the U.S. within the Nineteen Fifties as a bracero. Listening to the tales of immediately, she mentioned, “triggers the whole lot that they went by means of.”
“After I see it occurring, it’s a generational trauma that I really feel,” she mentioned. Lopez mentioned individuals round her are carrying passports and paperwork in public to show they’re residents.
“As a result of they’re afraid they could be profiled, picked up, kidnapped by ICE. When my son goes out, I fear,” she mentioned of her 28-year-old.
Later that afternoon, about 4 miles away exterior of Residence Depot in Pasadena, organizers staked within the floor dozens of white crosses that bore pictures of the useless — nearly all of them males. Attendees of the vigil laid flowers on the crosses in a makeshift cemetery.
“Shot useless by ICE,” learn one with a photograph of Keith Porter Jr., who was killed by an off responsibility ICE officer in California.
A number of of them contained particulars of how the deaths unfolded. A person killed after a tractor trailer struck him as he fled an ICE raid in Florida. A Cuban immigrant who died in a detention middle (his dying was later dominated a murder). A Mexican nationwide who fell 30 ft to his dying throughout a raid in California.
Among the many pictures on crosses had been Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
“Are we going to attend till 70 extra die to do one thing?” requested Marlom Portillo, an educator with the Nationwide Day Laborer Organizing Community, as he staked extra crosses into the bottom.
“What they need us to do is neglect them,” Portillo added. “We are going to by no means get bored with denouncing this atrocity.”
“There are extra individuals who died than there are individuals right here protesting,” Kathleen Vallee, a Monrovia resident, noticed to her pal. “And that claims quite a bit about us.”
Vallee mentioned when she attended the “No Kings” protest, it was “jam-packed.” Solely a dozen individuals had gathered round 20 minutes into the vigil.
“It turns my abdomen,” Vallee mentioned, arms clasped. “This simply appears to be seeping up from the sewer into our democracy and that motivates me.”
Because the small crowd assembled, demonstrators carried indicators that learn “Each particular person is sacred,” “we hold us secure” and “neighbors say ICE out.” One lady carried a home made signal that learn: “Who will they arrive for subsequent?”
Sheri Lochner, a 64-year-old Monrovia resident, is a part of East Pasadena Group Protection Nook, a small group that “offers assist and a way of group” for day laborers.
Lochner mentioned she watched as immigrant brokers took six or seven males at an Oct. 1 ICE raid on the Monrovia Residence Depot.
“So un-American,” Lochner mentioned, as she scanned the rows of crosses. “This isn’t proper.”
She added that her mother, who voted for Trump the primary time, agreed with her.
“I converse up, I can’t be silent,” she added.
