About 50 protesters gathered Saturday morning in Pasadena as part of a national act of honoring the lives lost during immigration enforcement and detention centers during the Trump administration.
They wore leaflets around their necks, hung from a yellow string, with smiling faces and the names of some of the 75 people who have died since January 2025.
“Killing by ICE” was printed above a photo of each person, including local resident Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, a 52-year-old who was killed while trying to escape immigration agents who descended on the Home Depot in Monrovia last year.
The Los Angeles residents, who are part of the San Gabriel Foothills Indivisible group, held American flags and carried signs reading “No ICE No War” and “Stop ICE Murders.”
“Hello, Pasadena,” Betsy Hanger, the group's organizer, called into a megaphone as she walked through the intersection. “Thank you for democracy. Honk if you want ICE off our streets now.”
Horns blared as drivers showed their support.
Organizer Andra Clarke held a banner in each hand that read “Neighbors Say ICE Out.” A sign around his neck bore the name and picture of Francisco Gaspar-Andrés, the 48-year-old who died at a Texas detention center in December.
Heba Turner was among the protesters demanding justice for those killed by ICE officers.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Clarke, 61, said the group has been meeting at the intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Fair Oaks Avenue every Saturday since March. Last weekend, they celebrated human rights activist John Lewis.
This Saturday, however, their focus was on ICE.
“Now 75 people have died at the hands of ICE,” Clarke said. “At first we were told, 'Well, they will go after the criminals, the worst people.' That is false; that is not what is happening.
“They're targeting communities, they're targeting people of color. It's fascism. … Anyone who cares about humanity should care about what's going on.”
Clarke said he was deeply moved when he heard about the recent deaths of two people killed by ICE.
The event was also a vigil to honor Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, who was killed by an ICE agent in Houston on July 7 while driving his team to a job site, and Johan Sebastian Guerrero, 25, who was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Maine during a traffic stop earlier this month.
“Like, again? Never ending. It feels like never ending – evil.”
Just before noon, Clarke used a megaphone to read aloud the names of dozens of dead. After each word was read, Hanger hit the singing bowl, the vibration echoing in the corner where they were standing. Sometimes, he read “unknown man” or “four unknown women.”
Next to them was a poster board with a picture of Daphy Michel, a 31-year-old woman who was found unresponsive in a Pittsburgh bus shelter after ICE removed her “in cold winter conditions and without care for mental health episodes or notification to relatives.”
“Let's take a moment of silence for all those taken,” said Clarke, bowing his head.
“It's like, again? It's never ending. It feels like it's never ending – evil,” said Andra Clarke, editor of San Gabriel Foothills Indivisible.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Among those gathered to listen was Leticia Lopez, a 65-year-old South Pasadena resident whose voice trembled as she spoke of the impact of hearing about another arrest or death tied to law enforcement.
“It drives me crazy,” he said, beating his chest. “It's not getting better, it's getting worse. I feel like I have to do something.”
Lopez, who was wearing a shirt that read “Immigrants are not criminals but the president is criminals,” said his mother and grandmother were forcibly returned from Arizona to Mexico.
His mother, who grew up in Mexico, later met his father there. He immigrated to the US in the 1950s as a bracero. Hearing today's news, he said, “causes everything they've been through.”
“When I see it happening, it's the trauma of a generation that I feel,” he said. Lopez said people around him carry passports and documents in public to prove they are citizens.
“Because they are afraid that they might be profiled, picked up, kidnapped by ICE. When my son comes out, I worry,” he said about his 28-year-old.
Later that afternoon, about four miles from the Home Depot in Pasadena, organizers poured down dozens of white crosses bearing images of the dead – most of them men. Those who attended the vigil placed flowers on the crosses in the temporary cemetery.
“Shot and killed by ICE,” read another with a photo of Keith Porter Jr., who was killed by an off-duty ICE officer in California.
Many of them contained details of how the death occurred. A man has died after being hit by a tractor trailer while fleeing an ICE raid in Florida. A Cuban immigrant who died in custody (his death was later ruled a homicide). A Mexican man who fell 30 meters to his death during a raid in California.
Among the images on the crosses are Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
“Are we going to wait until the other 70 are dead to do something?” asked Marlom Portillo, a teacher of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, as he placed many crosses on the ground.
“What they want us to do is to forget them,” added Portillo. “We will never get tired of condemning this cruelty.”
“There are more dead people than people protesting here,” Kathleen Vallee, a resident of Monrovia, told a friend. “And that means a lot to us.”
Vallee said that when he attended the “No Kings” protest, “it was packed.” Few people had gathered for about 20 minutes in the vigil.
“It's turning my stomach,” Vallee said, hands clasped. “This seems to be going up the drain into our democracy and that encourages me.”
As a small crowd gathered, protesters held signs that read “Everyone is holy,” “keep us safe” and “neighbors say ICE out.” One woman held a hand-made sign that read: “Who will come next?”
Sheri Lochner, a 64-year-old Monrovia resident, is part of the East Pasadena Community Defense Corner, a small group that “provides support and a sense of community” to day laborers.
Lochner said he watched as immigration agents picked up six or seven men in the Oct. 1 ICE at Monrovia Home Depot.
“You are not American,” said Lochner, as he photographed the lines of crosses. “This is not right.”
He added that his mother, who voted for Trump the first time, agreed with him.
“I am speaking, I will not be silent,” he added.
