{"id":295765,"date":"2026-05-01T23:39:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T23:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/295765\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T23:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T23:39:13","slug":"20th-anniversary-day-without-immigrants-march-in-sacramento","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/295765\/","title":{"rendered":"20th anniversary Day Without Immigrants march in Sacramento"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of protesters gathered at Southside Park on Friday to march against ICE in a demonstration that recalled one of the largest protests in Sacramento history.<\/p>\n

On May 1, 2006, thousands of protesters took to the streets to join a nationwide protest on behalf of America\u2019s undocumented immigrants. Participants were encouraged to skip work, school and avoid shopping.<\/p>\n

The rally, known as \u201cA Day Without Immigrants,\u201d drew up to 40,000 people according to event organizers. Sacramento police estimated a smaller crowd \u2014 15,000 to 18,000 \u2014 but the event was clearly one of the largest rallies in the city\u2019s history, according to reports published by The Sacramento Bee.<\/p>\n

Estimates for crowd sizes in other cities included 400,000 in Los Angeles and Chicago.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s protesters marked the 20th anniversary of the event by marching from Southside Park to Capitol Mall and the John E. Moss Federal Building, home to federal immigration courtrooms and local offices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n

Margarita Berta-Avila, president of the California Faculty Association union, lauded the group for its activism and urged a united front.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s about rolling your sleeves and getting to work,\u201d she said. \u201cRight now this fascist imperialist government is counting on us to fight and tear each other down.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a moral responsibility to be conscientious, aware that we cannot fall into this trap, for this fight is far from over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chanel Figueroa, 12th grader who walked out of school with students from The Met High School, described the experience of the family of her best friend, whose father was recently deported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey went days without knowing where her father was,\u201d she said. \u201cHe did absolutely nothing wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family was unprepared for the aggressive immigration enforcement policies of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t find a lawyer fast enough to even advocate for his case. By the time we found somebody, he already ended up in El Salvador.\u201d<\/p>\n

The march and rally was organized by NorCal Resist.<\/p>\n

\"Hundreds Hundreds of demonstrators participate in the \u201cA Day Without Immigrants\u201d 20th anniversary march from Southside Park through downtown Sacramento to the John E. Moss Federal Building to protest ICE on Friday. REN\u00c9E C. BYER rbyer@sacbee.com \"Maurya Maurya Perazzo of Sacramento holds a sign at Southside Park in Sacramento as she joins hundreds participating in the \u201cA Day Without Immigrants\u201d 20th anniversary march on Friday. REN\u00c9E C. BYER rbyer@sacbee.com \"Margarita Margarita Berta-Avila, president of the California Faculty Association labor union, right, holds a copy of a speech she gave at Southside Park in Sacramento while listening to other speakers at the \u201cA Day Without Immigrants\u201d 20th anniversary march on Friday. REN\u00c9E C. BYER rbyer@sacbee.com \"Xico Xico Gonzalez, right, with NorCal Resist, holds a megaphone as he leads a march toward Capitol Mall after speaking at a rally at Southside Park in Sacramento on Friday. The group was moving toward the John E. Moss Federal Building to protest ICE in a “Day without Immigrants” 20th anniversary march. REN\u00c9E C. BYER rbyer@sacbee.com \"Hundreds Hundreds of demonstrators participate in the \u201cA Day Without Immigrants\u201d 20th anniversary march along Capitol Mall in Sacramento as they head toward the John E. Moss Federal Building, to protest ICE on Friday. REN\u00c9E C. BYER rbyer@sacbee.com \"Samantha, Samantha, of Sacramento, holds a sign and waves a flag outside the John E. Moss Federal Building in Sacramento on Friday. She joined with hundreds in a “Day Without Immigrants” anniversary march, calling on ICE to leave Sacramento. REN\u00c9E C. BYER rbyer@sacbee.com \"Hundreds Hundreds of demonstrators participate in the \u201cA Day Without Immigrants\u201d 20th anniversary march from Southside Park through downtown Sacramento to the John E. Moss Federal Building in Sacramento on Friday. REN\u00c9E C. BYER rbyer@sacbee.com Photos from \u2018A Day Without Immigrants\u2019 march in 2006<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9e C. Byer<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9e C. Byer earned the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 2007 and was a finalist in 2013. She joined The Bee in 2003. Photographs from her internationally acclaimed book, \u201cLiving on a Dollar a Day: The Lives and Faces of the World\u2019s Poor,\u201d exhibit worldwide.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of protesters gathered at Southside Park on Friday to march against ICE in a demonstration that recalled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-295765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}