More than a dozen protesters gathered at El Cajon Civic Center on Tuesday to denounce an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid in the city last week.
The activists have filed a public records request demanding answers from city officials about their cooperation with federal immigration officials.
They said the involvement between the city and immigration enforcement agencies is concerning.
“We’re not going to stand by and watch this happen with our hands folded. No, no, absolutely not,” said Mairene Branham of the East County nonprofit Latinos En Acción. She said the raid last week was a fear-mongering tool.
“You think that fathers are going to now comfortably be leaving their homes everyday, knowing that that might be the last time that they’re going to come home to their children?" Branham asked. "This is terrible.”
Last Thursday, 15 people were arrested at San Diego Powder & Protective Coatings. A news release from ICE said general manager John Washburn was charged Friday with conspiracy to harbor aliens. Three employees, Gilver Martinez-Juanta, Miguel Angel Leal-Sanchez and Fernando Casas-Gamboa, were charged with using false documents to work in the United States.
Another seven employees are listed as material witnesses. The federal complaint said the business had a makeshift living space inside the facility.
“Make no mistakes, these actions terrorize working families,” said Pedro Rios with the American Friends Service Committee.
“We want to see that these public officials are held accountable for the misguided direction that they have for the policies that they’re putting in place that seek to harm hard-working families,” Rios said. "We want to make sure that the families that were affected in last week's raid feel that support from the community, feel our solidarity, feel our embrace."
Marine veteran Steve Jesionka said the raid last week was like a scene out of Nazi Germany. He said they shouldn’t happen in America.
“There should be more white people supporting ... our Black and brown brothers and sisters, Latino Americans, Native Americans, African Americans," he said. "If it can happen to some folks here in El Cajon, it could happen anywhere at any time.”
According to a recent Pew Research poll, 51% of Americans support deporting some immigrants here without authorization if they’ve committed violent crimes and about a third say all immigrants in the U.S. illegally should be deported.
The city has 10 days to respond to the public records request.
