by Dave Bazell
On November 1 and 2 Disappeared in America, a coalition of groups including the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), Detention Watch Network, The Workers Circle, and Public Citizen, organized a nationwide weekend of action. There were several actions to choose from and in Santa Fe we engaged in a combination of a vigil and a protest against ICE in Home Depot stores.
Palmira Figueroa
Preserving Democracy — NYC: Weekly Vigil
Our event was held at noon on Saturday, November 1 and was attended by 40-50 people from Indivisible Santa Fe, Indivisible SOS, Peacekeepers, the Ad Hoc Committee on Immigrant Lives, Santa Fe Better Together, and several other organizations as well as a number of unaffiliated people. Some people had hand-held signs while others wore signs saying “ICE out of The Home Depot Protect our Communities”.
We met at noon on the sidewalk outside Home Depot, a public space, and described the purpose of our action: call out Home Depot for staying silent about ICE raids at its stores around the country. For the vigil, we read the names of 18 detainees who died in ICE custody over the past year, followed by the names of three people who died while fleeing ICE during raids, including a raid at the Home Depot in Monrovia, CA. For the action portion of the protest, several of us went into the store to talk with the manager, while people wearing signs went into the store to roam the aisles with a partner or two.
Upon entering the store we went to the Customer Service center and asked to speak with the manager. The woman we spoke with looked rather agitated as she said she was trying to locate the manager. It took about five or ten minutes for the manager to meet us at Customer Service, where we waited patiently trying to stay out of the way of the customers. The manager showed up and looked very uncomfortable, but was very gracious. We introduced ourselves and shook hands. He told us that we could not film the encounter so we simply read a letter addressed to Home Depot management. He accepted a copy of the letter along with three “Everyone is Welcome Except ICE” signs, saying he had no authority to do anything without approval of upper management, but did agree to forward the letter to upper management. He then promptly explained that the store had a no solicitation and no picketing policy and asked up to leave the property, which we did. However, a number of groups who were roaming the aisles were still in the building and continued walking around for another ten or fifteen minutes—the manager was focussed on us and may not even have been aware of the other groups. The roaming groups reported later that they received a lot of thumps-ups from customers and maybe one or two negative reactions.
After we assembled outside again there were a lot of congratulations for things going well. Several people talked with the two reporters who were present. Not surprisingly, people wanted to know how things went for other groups and with the manager, so we debriefed, first in a large group then in several small groups as people returned from roaming the aisles. All-in-all a good day that hopefully will lead to other successful actions in the near future.
André Salkin asalkinsfnewmexican.com
