“After threat of Bay Area immigration ‘surge,’ activists stay primed.”
Last Wednesday, the day before President Donald Trump promised to “surge” federal forces in San Francisco and ordered federal immigration agents to a U.S. Coast Guard base in Alameda, the grassroots organizing group Bay Resistance was facing a crisis of abundance.
Twenty-four hours earlier, it had put out a call for volunteers to prepare for the imminent deployment. About 7,000 people registered for a Wednesday evening Zoom webinar that promised to provide concrete ways for volunteers to get involved in protecting immigrants from arrest and deportation.
An hour before the session had even started, 300 people were in the Zoom waiting room. When the talk ended, 1,000 people asked for a recording. The group’s mailing list subsequently jumped by 10,000 subscribers overnight.
“There was a lot of energy. People were really eager to find out what action they could take,” said Emily Lee, co-founder of Bay Resistance. “It was amazing.”
Bay Resistance is not alone. Across the Bay Area, thousands of people have committed to volunteer, signed up for mailing lists, or otherwise joined immigration advocacy groups vowing to stay vigilant against a future deployment.
“We are constantly supporting, talking and organizing workers,” said Palmira Figueroa of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which provides day laborers with legal help and campaigns nationally for better workers’ rights. “That’s what we’ve been doing for 20 years. So if they [ICE] come or not, we keep on going with our work.”
Thousands of volunteers signed up to join an “action pod” with Bay Resistance — groups of 10 to 20 individuals who organize on behalf of immigrants in their own communities.
They might educate their neighbors and small businesses on immigration rights, for example, or organize against a proposed detention center in their town.
That army of potential activists has grown from 3,000 before last week’s threats to 5,500 today.
The Immigrant Defense Committee, an entirely volunteer-led group that organizes foot patrols in Oakland and San Francisco, got 300 new volunteers in San Francisco alone to patrol around neighborhoods and keep an eye out for ICE activity.
The National Day Laborer Organizing Network launched an “Adopt a Corner” initiative this June. The program helps day laborers, who gather at certain intersections to find work, by organizing volunteers who work in shifts to keep watch for signs of immigration enforcement activity.
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Nuevo Sol Day Labor and Domestic Worker Center is leading the “Adopt a Corner” initiative in San Francisco. It now has over 600 volunteers helping day laborers find work and taking lookout shifts, said Francisco Herrera, the group’s co-executive director.
In the Mission, the nonprofit HOMEY, which serves San Francisco families with food and rental assistance among other programs, has been gathering volunteers for the Defensa del Barrio initiative.
The small foot patrols of activists and organizers was formed last month and work to inform residents of their rights in case of an ICE arrest, in Spanish, once a week by visiting local businesses and homes.
Executive Director Roberto Eligio Alfaro said it was needed: People still wonder what to do if it ever happens to them. People will stop Alfaro and ask, “What do I do?” he said. He then sits with them and explains.
Organizers cautioned that immigration arrests continue throughout the region, albeit at a slower pace than would have followed mass raids.
“People are still getting captured, illegally detained and deported without procedure, throughout the Bay Area,” said Herrera. Last weekend, ICE officers detained about 25 undocumented immigrants reporting for check-ins at their Stockton office.
San Francisco city government, too, has continued preparing for future immigration crackdowns. At a Monday night meeting, representatives from the Public Defender’s Office, the San Francisco Police Department and others detailed available services and clarified existing sanctuary city laws.
The momentum is also bolstering groups less focused on immediate defense. The Latino Task Force, a group active in the Mission District, is using the momentum to ramp up fundraising efforts and last Saturday partnered with St. Mark’s Lutheran Church to host a “Joyful Resistance Market” featuring local vendors, free food and know-your-rights workshops.
The church is a self-proclaimed “sanctuary congregation,” and church members were stationed at doors and volunteers patrolled the streets to ensure a safe space, said Katia Padilla, chief operating officer of policy, strategic and equitable partnerships at Latino Task Force.
“We need our allies on the front line right now. And when I say allies, I mean white-led or white communities, who may, in some cases, have access to various resources that we may need,” she said.
At every event, the group also hands out Red Cards, a print-out card put out by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center that details the constitutional rights of people in the United States, irrespective of legal status.
The next immigration scare, they said, could be around the corner.
“We want to be 10 steps ahead,” said Padilla. “We want to be prepared. We don’t want what happened in Chicago or Portland to happen here.”
