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Scores rally in Pensacola for ‘Day without Immigrants’ amid immigration crackdown

Immigration demonstrators marching
T.S. Strickland
/
WUWF Public Media
Immigrants and allies march in Downtown Pensacola at a "Day without Immigrants" rally on Feb. 3, 2025

Immigrants and their allies gathered Monday to mark "A Day Without Immigrants," a movement aimed at highlighting the essential role immigrants play in American life. More than 100 people assembled in Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza to march, chant, and share their stories.

The rally came amid new federal immigration policies that have expanded enforcement and rolled back certain protections.

By 3 p.m., demonstrators waved flags from Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras, and other countries. They carried handmade signs and chanted over the sound of passing traffic.

Grace McCaffery, publisher of La Costa Latina and one of the rally's organizers, climbed onto a step ladder to address the crowd.

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"We're all here today to support our immigrant community," she said, "and we'll be very specific, our undocumented immigrant community, OK? They want us to be afraid and I'm gonna tell you guys right now, do not be afraid."

A short time later, McCaffery handed the microphone to Claudia Castillo, who spent 18 years in the U.S. before she was able to qualify for a green card. Castillo attended the rally with her 17-year-old daughter, Delta Olmedo.

"I may not be in fear (now)," she said, "but I have fear for my friends, fear for anybody that wants to be here and do life. Why are they being punished for that? It's unfair."

She gestured to her daughter.

"She has a privilege to be here ... and it doesn't matter if she's a second, third, fourth generation. Don't forget where you come from."

Overcome by emotion, Olmedo took the microphone from her mother. On Sunday, she told the crowd, ICE had taken her friend's father.

"ICE tears apart families," she said, tears streaming down her face. "They take away parents from their kids. This doesn't just affect the Mexican or the Hispanic community. This affects everybody. And if you have empathy, you should be here. And you should be speaking up for us. And everybody should fight for us because we fight for you."

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The impact of these policies extends beyond homes and workplaces into places that were once thought beyond the reach of ICE. Teachers, like DeShaun McKinsey, said they were already seeing the effects in their classrooms.

"One of the most important things to me is that my classroom is safe," McKinsey said. "But to me, my classroom is not a safe space for ICE. ICE is not welcome in my classroom. The idea that Donald Trump wants places like churches and schools, places meant for the vulnerable and the young, to be places for ICE is unconscionable."

Pastor Luis Ramirez, an accountant who also leads a mostly immigrant congregation in Cantonment, said his church had become a refuge for those facing deportation, and he felt a responsibility to protect them.

"I'll tell you this," he said, "nobody is allowed to come to my church and take my people. They have to take me first."

A moment later, a woman stepped forward to the microphone and addressed the crowd in Spanish.

"Only God has the power to change the laws," she said. "To change the thoughts of those in power. And this is what God wants—that we stay united, that we raise our voices, but also that we seek Him."

Then, she began to recite the Lord's Prayer.

As the sun set and rush hour traffic swelled, the crowd joined together in a final chant before dispersing.

"The people united will never be defeated!" they chanted.

T.S. Strickland is an award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, Entrepreneur and many other publications. Strickland was born and raised in Pensacola's Ferry Pass neighborhood and cut his teeth working as a newspaper reporter in the Ozark Mountains before returning home to work as a government reporter for the Pensacola News Journal. While there, his reporting earned a Gold Medal for Public Service from the Florida Society of News Editors, one of the highest professional awards in the state. In his spare time, he enjoys building software products, attending Pensacola Opera performances with his effervescent partner, Brooke, and advocating for greenway development with the nonprofit he co-founded, The Bluffline.