By Dan Bacher

Three local organizations – NorCal Resist, the Center on Race, Immigration and Social Justice at Sacramento State University and the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign – held a vigil and rally at the Downtown federal courthouse in late September, loudly saying ‘No’ to ICE’s alleged racial profiling and reports of lawless actions against immigrant workers in the Sacramento area.

“On Monday, September 8, the Supreme Court dealt a severe blow to due process and civil liberties in our country,” the coalition of groups said in a statement. “It has given a green light for federal immigration authorities to resume unconstitutional ‘roving patrols’ that permit agents to stop and question people based on discriminatory factors like their race, the language they speak, and the kind of work they do.”

The protest at Sacramento’s federal court started brewing the week before, when Cathleen Williams from the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign received an email from the National Day Laborers Organizing Network calling for a day of action around the Supreme Court ruling. The recent ruling came just as the Board of Immigration Appeals, or BIA, issued its own controversial decision that strips immigration judges of their discretion to grant bond in many cases.

“By expanding mandatory detention to a broad group of noncitizens who are not a flight risk or a danger to public safety, the BIA has guaranteed that more of our family, friends, and neighbors will be needlessly held in detention centers, away from their loved ones and community support systems,” the local protesting groups said in a collective statement. “Sacramento joined other cities—Altadena, Pasadena, Los Angeles, Santa Rosa and Salinas—and hosted a vigil and rally.”

Michael Ramirez began the Sacramento event around 5:30 p.m. with land acknowledgments for the original caretakers of the land, the Nisenan, Maidu, Miwok and Me-Wuk peoples. Ramirez went on to stress that he sees hope “as long as there are people out here who care about one another who will try to convince those that have attempted to lose their humanity for the intent of making money, for the intent of making profit, for the intent of fitting in, for the intent of doing what they think should be done” the error of what they are actually doing.

“You give a damn about your neighbors,” Ramirez added. “You don’t let the people around you go hungry, whether they be two legged or four legged. You make sure that your water is clean, you make sure that your family is healthy, you make sure your family is awake, you make sure your family is aware, you make sure your family is here with you.”

The Trump Administration has repeatedly stated that it is simply following through with campaign promises to strengthen borders and increase overall immigration enforcement, and that a majority of Americans voted for those priorities by electing Trump to his second term in office. It has also cited its recent court victories as evidence that it is on the right side of the law.  

But Faye Wilson Kennedy, with the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign, and Dr. Manuel Barajas, from the Center on Race, Immigration and Social Justice, strongly opposed that view while serving as the emcees for the Sacramento rally.

“We must say ‘No’ to racial profiling and ‘No’ to ICE’s lawless violence against immigrant workers in Sacramento and across the country,” Kennedy stressed. “The Supreme Court’s racist decision just gave the Trump Administration the green light to keep sending masked ICE agents to harass, detain, and abduct people based on how they look, speak, or where they work.”

The Rev. Carla Dietz, former pastor at Parkside Church in Sacramento, also spoke.

“Friends, we are in the midst of a racial terror and a social terror,” Rev. Dietz told them. “Working people who have been productive contributors to our economy are watched, stalked and abducted by masked agents. We need to ask; if ICE agents are doing good work for the people of the country, then why in the world do they need to be masked? If the answer is that they fear for their lives, think how much more true that fear for life is for the people abducted. The administration has created an environment where we all live in fear. Is that the way we want to live? Is this the “home of the free and the brave?” It doesn’t feel like it.”  

Dietz recounted how in March the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to“disappear” more than 130 men into a mega-prison in El Salvador without due process.

“For months, their loved ones had no sign of life from their fathers, brothers, and friends,” Dietz went on. “The men reported verbal, physical, sexual, and psychological abuse in the mega-prison, including beatings and sexual assault by guards. Because of lawsuits and public outcry in July, many of the deported Venezuelans were released from the El Salvadoran prison and flown to Venezuela as part of a prisoner exchange. Relieved they are no longer languishing in the El Salvador prison notorious for torture, their safety is far from guaranteed.”  

Dietz urged people to take action by compelling members of Congress to cosponsor the “Neighbors Not Enemies Act,” or S.193/H.R. 630, to prevent future presidents from deporting people without evidence or the chance to be heard in court.   

Volma Volcy, the Sacramento Central Labor Council’s Chief of Staff followed Dietz’s remarks by emphasizing the need for people to organize in light of the increasing repression by the Trump regime.

“It’s great that we show up here in solidarity and I appreciate it — and I love it as a matter of fact,” said Volcy. “It’s good that we have a representative from Congresswoman Matsui’s Office here. But what are we going to do to change what’s happening right in front of us? “We are losing our country right in front of us. Are we actually going to organize? Are we actually going to mobilize? Cause if we are, then we need to hit the streets. I’m tired of doing this. I’m tired of showing up to rallies when I know that my brothers and sisters are going to be deported regardless of what I do.”

Well-known Sacramento civil rights attorney Mark Merin was present at the rally to call the Supreme Court’s decision a “very bad precedent” that sanctioned profiling people based on “appearance, language and a particular place of work.”

Merin pointed out that Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor called it “a total violation of the Fourth Amendment” in her dissenting opinion.

“In this circumstance where you can’t turn to the courts, where can you turn?” Merin asked aloud. “Turn to your elected representatives, possibly, but really, you need to turn to the people. It’s up to you. It’s up to us, to raise such a clamor, to clog the streets and complain about everything because when they come for your neighbor one day, they come for you the next. We are all in this together.”

The attorney’s sentiments were echoed by Mario Galvan of the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign and Sacramento PeaceAction, who focused on the plight of day laborers in this country under the Trump administration.

“The people who work as day laborers are day laborers because they don’t have regular jobs,” Galvan noted. “They too are poor people. The poor people are at least half of the population of this country. Poor people are the majority in this country, but we let ourselves be controlled by a tiny, tiny group of rich people, one-tenth of 1 percent, with their money.”

Other speakers at the rally included Elicia Yoffee of Sacramento Jewish Voice for Peace, Veronica Serrato from the Council on American-Islamic Relations and two students – Jaqueline Citlali Chavez and Guillermo Duenez Arroy – from Sacramento State University.

Giselle Garcia, a volunteer for NorCal Resist, and Cathleen Williams, of the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign, provided the closing remarks. As SN&R and Solving Sacramento reported on Sept. 23, there has been an increase in ICE arrests in Northern California this year — but NorCal Resist is doing numerous things to respond.

As Srishti Prabha previously wrote for Solving Sacramento, “California currently ranks third in the nation for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests, behind Texas and Florida, according to data published in the Deportation Data Project from UCLA and UC Berkeley. In 2025, ICE arrests in Northern California have nearly doubled — up 123% from late 2024 — with more than half of those detained possessing no criminal record, according to the SF Chronicle. As fear spreads among immigrant workers, the state’s workforce has seen a 3.1% drop.”

NorCal Resist was founded in 2017 as a mutual-aid collective and has become a critical lifeline for immigrant families in Sacramento and beyond by offering a range of support, such as legal clinics, deportation defense, rapid-response accompaniment, and food and diaper deliveries to those unable to leave the house safely.

“’We are seeing an increase in physical violence being used here in Sacramento,”’ Garcia emphasized, pointing to a Home Depot raid on Florin Road in South Sacramento where ICE agents allegedly maced a NorCal Resist volunteer who helping day laborers on site. “It should be indefensible and inexcusable.”