PROTEST OUTSIDE EL CAJON CITY HALL OVER IMMIGRATION RAIDS

Latino and labor groups submit records request on communications between city, ICE and federal officials

By Miriam Raftery

View video of the press conference

April 2, 2025 (El Cajon) – A coalition of advocacy groups and El Cajon residents held a press conference today outside El Cajon City Hall to denounce the March 27 immigration raid on a painting company in the unincorporated part of El Cajon.

El Cajon City Manager Graham Mitchell, in response to a request for comment from ECM, stated via email, “El Cajon staff (police, management, elected officials, etc.), had no involvement in the Federal law enforcement action that took place outside the city limits last week. I learned about the event when I saw a media alert. Further, the City's involvement would have been a violation of Prop 47 and we are committed to abiding the law.”

But speakers called for “accountability” from the Mayor and three councilmembers who recently voted on a resolution to allow the city’s police to cooperate with federal immigration officials regarding undocumented immigrants in the city accused or convicted of crimes.

Latinos en Acción and the National Day Labor Organizing Network also submitted a public records request to the city seeking all communications of city elected officials and employees with U.S. Customs and Immigration (ICE), the Dept. of Homeland Security, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, the San Diego County Sheriff, State Senator Brian Jones, and the anti-immigrant group America First Legal between Nov. 2024 and the present regarding enforcement of immigration law, the immigration enforcement resolution, and the immigration raid.

“El Cajon’s officials are using their seats to push pro-Trump resolutions that have no legal weight but do cause plenty of harm. They sow division and unfairly target their own hard-working neighbors. They endorsed these mass deportation politics, and now we are seeing the results,” says Mairene Brenham, president of Latinos en Acción president, which organized the protest.

“It’s a sad day when our own city officials are trying to deport their own neighbors,” said Violeta, an El Cajon resident and leader with Latinos en Acción.  She called out Mayor Bill Wells as well as Councilmembers Phil Ortiz and Steve Goble for “anti-immigrant stunts” that she said “promote Trump’s MAGA agenda” and cause “suffering” to working families.

ECM reached out to Mayor Wells and Councilmembers Ortiz and Goble for comments.  Ortiz  did not respond.

Councilman Goble stated via email, " My position hasn't changed from the commitment to protect the residents of El Cajon."

He referenced the February 11, 2025, El Cajon City Council's approved by a 3-2 vote a resolution titled, "A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF EL CAJON DECLARING THE CITY’S COMMITMENT TO ENSURE THE PUBLIC SAFETY OF ALL RESIDENTS, AND ASSERTING THE CITY’S INTENT TO COMPLY WITH FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAW TO THE LEGAL EXTENT PERMISSIBLE FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF REMOVING VIOLENT CRIMINALS FROM OUR COMMUNITY."

Goble noted, "The resolution states any compliance with federal immigration law is 1) to the legal extent permissible, and 2) for the sole purpose of removing violent criminals from our community".    

Mayor Wells replied via email, stating, “Nobody knows why the business was raided.  I personally doubt that it was solely to arrest people whose primary crime was to have crossed the border illegally, but I have no confirmation of that.  I only know that I was told, by people high up in the Trump administration that the focus would be on gang members, traffickers and people who have committed horrible crimes, and that it would take quite a while to extend to the group mentioned. I understand the fear that people have but I suspect that it is the activists stoking it for their own purposes.  Let’s see what the facts bear out.”

According to the US. Attorney’s office, several workers were arrested and charged with false documentation to work in the U.S., but not more serious crimes. The owner of the business raided in El Cajon is charged with conspiracy to hire undocumented immigrants. Multiple media outlets have confirmed that dozens of other workers were detained temporarily outside the business, until their citizenship could be verified.

Pedro Rios with the American Friends Service Committee stated, “Make no mistake , these types of actions terrorize working families and cause tremendous trauma to members of our communities. These are constituents of the elected officials that hold office in the building behind us.” He added that the city officials “are supposed to be held accountable for their actions. Instead, they are having secret meetings with the current Administration, that are seeking to deport hard-working community members.”

He said the rally was important to show support for the families whose loved ones have been taken into federal custody, leaving mothers worried over how to support their children.

City officials confirmed in a recent City Council meeting that the mayor and others met with Homan to discuss increasing cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The city’s resolution calls for cooperation with ICE over undocumented immigrants who are convicted or merely accused of a crime.  The Trump administration has indicated it considers anyone who crossed the border without documentation to be a criminal who can be deported.  State law limits cooperation by cities to only immigrations convicted of specified serious crimes, and the U.S. Justice Dept. has confirmed in a letter to the city that it will not indemnify El Cajon or its police officers against any lawsuit the state might file if the city cooperates beyond what state law allows.

Brenham told ECM that of the four employees arrested in the recent raid, two are being held at the Otay Mesa detention center, one has been deported to Tijuana, Mexico, and another is being held in Denver pending potential deportation.  “They’re not attacking the violent people. They’re coming after the hard-working people,” she said, adding that a young girl crying as her father from Guatemala was arrested at the raid “broke my heart.”

According to Brenham, around 70 employees were detained for around five hours outdoors, a frightening experience even for those later released after their citizenship was verified.

Salvador Sarmiento, campaign director for the National Day Laborer Organization, told ECM, “It’s clear that the mayor is on the wrong side and is promoting these family separation policies.”  Of the records request, he said, “It seems the mayor is coordinating with them (federal immigration authorities) more than with his constituents.”

The press conference ended with a coalition of 30 residents, advocates and community attorneys hand-delivering the public records request to the city clerk. 

Some at the protest also held signs calling for the recall of El Cajon Councilman Phil Ortiz, whose district has a majority of Latino voters. Latinos in Accion has launched a website, https://www.recallphilortiz.com/  Sergio Conte, an organizer in the recall effort, told ECM that the group has gathered 76 of the required 90 signatures to put a recall election on the ballot, and hopes to fulfill the signature needs in the near future.

Yusef Miller, executive director of Activist San Diego, called the Council’s actions “terrorism of our community.”  He spoke of men arrested and deported for trying to support their families. “These are valuable members of our community who have done great work for us.”   

Alor Calderon, executive director of the Employee Rights Center, also spoke out at the press conference.  “Workers all around San Diego County and around this country are taking notice—that our work, our dignity is not being respected,” he said. “On behalf of the ERC, I want to say we are paying attention, we will be present, and will follow through with families and the entire community, because acts like this demonstrate a failure to respect the most basic rights of all workers.”