Immigrant communities across the United States opted to forgo work, school and other activities Monday to rally for “A Day Without Immigrants,” a national movement aimed at recognizing the essential contributions immigrants make to support daily American life.

Speaking to a group of roughly 50 community members at the Eureka Old Town gazebo, Karen Villa, a community organizer with Centro del Pueblo, called for immediate immigration reform.

“A Day Without Immigrants means a day without us in school, a day without our colleagues, a day without food on the table because a lot of us are working to put food on the table,” Villa said. “We want to be acknowledged. We want to have our rights. We want to be able to spend our time here in this country as citizens. Without us, this country wouldn’t be able to do a lot of things.”

Karen Villa.

The movement was sparked in 2017 in response to hostile immigration policies coming from the Trump administration. This year’s protests focused on immigration provisions within the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Act that would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented individuals who entered the United States before Jan. 1, 2011.

“How many of us have lost our parents? How many of us have not been able to see our families? How many of us have had to leave our children behind just to put food on the table?” asked community member Reyna Bonilla, in Villa’s translation. “We’re not coming here to have a better life, we’re coming here because we need a better life. Here we are, we’re working, we’re trying our best and all we want immigration reform and we plead to our president here in the United States that he can provide this for us.”

Centro del Pueblo member Denise Hernandez echoed Bonilla’s call and asked for understanding noting, “We are just trying to feed our families.”

“We are not illegal persons. We are not immigrants. We are just human,” she said. “The seeds, the animals, the plants, they are immigrants and we are too. There is nothing wrong with moving. This is not an illegal action. We are trying to put food on the table.”

The rally continued in a march to the Humboldt County Courthouse. (Click photos to enlarge.)