The streets of Los Angeles were filled Sept. 10 with thousands of marchers ready to stand up to the Trump administration’s announcement that it intends to repeal the last administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program within the next six months.
DACA, initiated through a fragile executive order in 2012, covers over 800,000 undocumented migrants who arrived in the United States under the age of 16, giving recipients the right to defer future immigration action, work, get an education, and travel (with additional fees) for renewable two-year periods.
After Trump’ blunt and cruel announcement, the residential streets of Los Angeles’ largest immigrant neighborhoods, boulevards and freeway underpasses echoed with sounds of rage, hope, and determination. The march was multigenerational, multinational and triumphantly hopeful. East Los Angeles educator Sal Valdez told Liberation News: “Many of my students are on DACA, I’m worried about them. They’re the innocent that are being maligned and affected by this, so we must mobilize.”
As the march progressed from Central Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park, through the Echo Park area, ending up at the Olvera Street Plaza (the site of L.A.’s founding as a part of Mexico in 1781, before colonization and annexation to the United States). Streets were blocked off and filled for many blocks, making it impossible to see from one end to the other.
Hundreds of drivers leaned out of passing cars to high-five, hug, and congratulate the marchers, and apartment fire escapes, balconies and the sides of streets and public areas filled with scores of onlookers, many of whom joined in with a march that covered five miles and five hours, with a huge mass of people still there as the sun went down.
Speakers – undocumented young people, elders and activists from feminist, indigenous, student, anti-racist and anti-imperialist groups – spoke in no uncertain terms during the march and intermittent rallies about the intent of those present to resist the administration’s racist and bluntly cruel decision unconditionally. They called for California cities to guarantee full sanctuary to all undocumented families, and an end to I.C.E. activities, detention facilities, and the policing of immigrant communities as a form of state terror, here and across the country. One sign called on the United States Congress to “justify your existence.”
Multiple speeches also called for deep and sweeping political-social changes, led by the people and extending far beyond those offered by professional political leaders or parties. Los Angeles union organizer Hassan Zuniga told us “this affects my life, to be an undocumented person, if we don’t do something about it.” He said, “If the existing institutions and politicians can’t offer a resistance,” then we need better institutions, and a better system altogether.
ANSWER Coalition member Melina Rodriguez connected the reactionary Trump agenda to years of policies – both Democrat and Republican – that have kept immigrant communities in fear and produced hundreds of thousands of refugees abroad via imperialist wars and economic exploitation, saying that a government that represents the people “Could and should provide legal rights and protection for the more than twelve million undocumented people living in the United States,” without conditions.
Rodriguez noted that while contacting one’s local representatives in Congress is a start, the thousands of people there in the streets were making a statement a thousand times more difficult to ignore. The attendees on Sunday made it heard loud and clear that, as she said “enough is enough, we are tired of politicians’ excuses,” and immigrants and their allies must not only defend DACA but fight for much, much more security, dignity, and happiness than that which the executive order promised.
These are distressing times, with many days bringing further news about the Trump administration’s inhumane attacks on our society’s most vulnerable groups, climate change, and threats of increased state violence and war. But this protest also proved that these are also hopeful times, that in the depth of despair and anger, people from all parts of this society are prepared to fight back militantly and collectively, forcing the hand of the administration via mass resistance. Amidst a time of great fear and insecurity for millions of people, the mood at this protest was buoyant, urgent, and breathtakingly positive.
“People have to come out and confront this attack. This administration has to bear to our resistance,” said Los Angeles resident and worker Omar Pye. It was the people who forced the U.S. government to enact the basic measures ensured in DACA via a tide of immigration justice organizing throughout the 2000s, it is the people who will defend and protect them, and it is the people who will continue to organize and agitate for far more substantial, conclusive and permanent justice for immigrants and their families as our generation’s history unfolds.
