Unions, Immigration Advocates Lead Boycott Against Corporations Supporting ICE Raids

Immigrant-rights advocates undertook a daylong “community stoppage” Tuesday with a 24-hour boycott of various businesses, plus rallies opposing federal immigration enforcement operations.

The action, which began at midnight Tuesday, was organized by several groups, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles, Service Employees International Union Local 721, Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles and the Garment Worker Center.

Participants were urged to join events scheduled throughout the day and to support individuals and families affected by immigration raids.

The coalition also called for a boycott of The Home Depot, Target, Walmart and fast food restaurants.

“These corporations whether implicitly or not have allowed their facilities to be used as places where federal agents violated workers’ rights and have inflicted pain and terror in our community and families,” Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for CHIRLA, said in an email to City News Service.

“These corporations benefit on a daily basis from our hard-earned dollars and yet remain silent in light of the attacks against Angelenos and workers,” he added.

Organizers said the boycott was aimed at showing the economic influence of immigrant communities and to demand an end to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and the expansion of private detention centers.

“This is an action that will involve supporters or our community who dislike the way the federal government is overreaching and violating workers’ due process and rights,” Cabrera said. “This community stoppage is the precursor of more actions to come later in the year calling on the federal government to stop these racist raids.”

The day of action began with a midnight fast-food workers strike at a restaurant near MacArthur Park, followed by a second walkout at 5 a.m. A “Take Back Our Park” coffee and breakfast was held early Tuesday morning at Park View and Wilshire Boulevard, followed by a 10 a.m rally at MacArthur Park involving hundreds of people.

Participants were expected Tuesday afternoon to march from MacArthur Park to the county Hall of Administration. A 5 p.m. rally was also planned at Placita Olvera (Olvera Street), followed by a march to the downtown federal detention center, where a vigil will be held.

A spokesman for The Home Depot issued a statement saying, “Immigration enforcement agencies are the best sources if you have questions. We aren’t notified that these activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in the operations. We’re required to follow all federal and local rules and regulations in every market where we operate.”

Target and Walmart did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Plans for the community stoppage were announced last week at a news conference at MacArthur Park. The announcement came a day after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security conducted a raid at a Home Depot on Wilshire Boulevard, where agents hid in a Penske truck and descended on day laborers at the site. ICE arrested approximately 16 individuals as a result of the raid.

Aggressive ICE raids began June 6, resulting in the arrest of 2,792 immigrants in Los Angeles County and six surrounding counties who are suspected of living in the United States without legal permission.

Homeland Security previously announced that fewer than 1,400 immigrants were arrested in the region last month.

Some immigration experts suggested the decrease was due to a federal court order limiting the scope of immigration-enforcement operations in the area.

A federal judge last month issued a temporary restraining order preventing the government from stopping individuals in violation of the Fourth Amendment and requiring the government to provide detained individuals with access to counsel.

The federal government appealed the ruling, but last week, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put a stay on the ruling. The federal government has appealed the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The restraining order, however, did not prevent last Wednesday’s operation involving the Penske truck. On X, U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles Bill Essayli acknowledged the operation, writing, “For those who thought immigration enforcement had stopped in Southern California, think again. The enforcement of federal law is not negotiable, and there are no sanctuaries from the reach of the federal government.”

Essayli defended the raid as being within the scope of reasonable suspicion.

CHIRLA was among groups who sued the federal government for their “roving patrols” and enforcement tactics.

“We’re so proud of the work we did to document all of the abuses that led our courts to say you do need a temporary restraining from the federal agents as they are conducting immigration enforcement throughout the Los Angeles region,” Angelica Salas, executive director for CHIRLA, previously said.

“We believe in the courts, and we believe in the Constitution, and we’re going to continue to fight in the courts because we have rights, and we’re going to affirm those rights in every way possible,” she added.

Additionally, participants in Tuesday’s community stoppage were encouraged to purchase from local street vendors and, if possible, buy them out.

“There’s so many street vendors who feel terrorized, so if you can go to your local street vendor to buy their flowers, buy their food and buy the things that they’re selling because they deserve to have an opportunity in this moment that they are suffering,” Salas said.

Ike Silver, an assistant professor of marketing at the USC Marshall School of Business, told City News Service that he was pessimistic about seeing a clear impact as a result of a single boycott on the policy of any presidential administration.

“That said, to the extend that these kinds of events can add up through time, the cumulative impact can be to draw attention, raise awareness, change public opinion in the hopes that if enough of these happen over time, there will be sort of a shift in what’s demanded of leadership of business and of government,” Silver told CNS.

According to Silver, success of the boycott can be measured differently depending on the goals of the organizers.

“So my sense is that a 24-hour boycott is not likely to change Home Depot’s bottom line all that much in and of itself, but if it activates Angelenos who might otherwise not be paying attention or not be aware of Home Depot’s, or other businesses connection to this issue, then that can be sort of a different success metric, such that those people might demand action,” Silver said.

Silver said it can be hard to say when one rally, one boycott, or one action will tip the balance.

“In the context of something like the Civil Rights Movement, it’s hard to say which boycott, which sit-in, which march was the one that changed things, but we can see that in aggregate over the course of history these kinds of actions do take effect — and so there’s an element of keeping faith,” Silver told CNS.