2 days ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Hundreds gather in Oakland in solidarity with Los Angeles protesters
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Oakland on Tuesday night to express solidarity with Los Angeles, where a fifth day of protests were held to denounce arrests of immigrants by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The gathering at Fruitvale Plaza stood in sharp contrast to demonstrations held in San Francisco on Sunday and Monday, which led to arrests of more than 200 people who refused police orders to disperse.
Called 'The Bay Stands with LA,' the event drew a crowd of a few hundred people was organized by Faith in Action East Bay, Bay Resistance and others. People held Mexican flags and signs with slogans like 'Constitution Applies to All' and 'We Are all Los Angeles' and calmly listened to a drum circle and other music performances and speeches from faith leaders.
On Sunday and Monday, thousands gathered in San Francisco to protest a spate of recent federal immigration arrests and the Trump administration's most recent travel ban, as well as his decision to deploy the California National Guard and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles following protests there. On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom sued the Trump administration over the deployment, and immigration courts in San Francisco and Concord were shut down after arrests by ICE agents prompted more protests.
At the Oakland event, union and faith leaders prayed with the crowd and urged people to build community and stick together to fight back against the federal government.
The speeches from the packed stage were intermittently interrupted by the whirring of a drill as a worker put up plywood planks to protect the windows at a CitiBank at the plaza.
Imam Sundiata Rashid of Oakland's Lighthouse Mosque inspired loud cheers from the crowd, saying that the anti-ICE movement did not have friends in either political party – and that it would not have even if Democrats controlled the White House.
'If we think for one minute we would've had it better had the other side won, we are sorely mistaken,' Rashid said. 'The other side didn't put a stop to ICE either.'
Rashid also said that local police were complicit in suppressing protests and are helping ICE by doing so.
'They overpolice us, they put us in prison, they take our lives,' Rashid said. 'It doesn't matter if it's a federal cop or a local cop.'
Ruben, a 59-year-old who did not give his last name because he is undocumented, said that he wasn't going to miss the vigil even if it meant risking his own safety. Both immigrants from Mexico, he and his wife Andrea have lived in the U.S. since 2017 but he said they have never experienced this much fear.
'I don't want my name out there, but I couldn't stay home either,' he said 'What good is safety if it costs someone else their freedom?"
The speeches ended and demonstrators started to disperse around 8 p.m., when some protesters briefly blocked traffic at International Boulevard and 34th street to watch a sideshow collision in the street, and then soon moved on.
