Respect our Neighbors! ICE out of Home Depot!

By Gabriela, staff at the Street Level Health Project

Soon after Trump returned to the White House, ICE agents began terrorizing our immigrant neighbors, kidnapping people off the streets, and tearing families apart. ICE has especially targeted the street corners and Home Depots where day laborers wait for work, risking their freedom so that they can support their families. 

Declaring that solo el pueblo salva al pueblo (only the people can save the people), the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) launched its Adopt-a-Corner campaign: a program that supports regular people to staff “foot patrols,” standing up for day laborers by watching out for ICE agents. 

Indivisible East Bay has partnered with Street Level Health Project (SLHP) to “adopt” the Oakland Home Depot on Alameda Avenue, and has been staffing foot patrols there since August. (To join the wonderful foot patrol – over 100 volunteers! – sign up here.) At SLHP, we provide services to day laborers and immigrants in Oakland, and SLHP has become the “safety net of the safety net.” We are happy to partner with IEB’s Immigration Action Team, and we would be grateful if you could make a year-end donation here to support this very important work!

On Super Saturday, December 20th, over 200 people marched from Fruitvale to the Oakland Home Depot for an ICE OUT OF HOME DEPOT action – one of dozens of similar actions happening this holiday season across the country! Check out this video that shares more information about the Home Depot foot patrol and the goals of the action.

In defiance of the horrors visited upon immigrants, the people brought joy: inside the store we marched, chanted, and sang loudly – accompanied with unbridled enthusiasm by the Brass Liberation Orchestra! After buying and returning hundreds of ICE scrapers, we adjourned to the parking lot for a rally, where community leaders fired up the crowd, despite the rain! 

The Home Depot staff (including the security guards!) were lovely – cheerfully helping us with our purchases and returns. Some rally-goers overheard staff talking and reported in the Home Depot Foot Patrol Signal chat: “How can we be mad, it’s so well-organized,” and “Wow, they’ve got bubbles, looks like fun!” 

It was indeed incredibly fun – check out the joyful defiance captured on video here!

Nine community partners threw down together to make this protest possible: AFSCME 3299, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Bay Resistance, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, (CURYJ) the Immigrant Defense Committee, Indivisible East Bay, the Oakland Education Association, SEIU 1021, and Street Level Health Project SLHP.

Representatives of SLHP and IEB met with management at the Oakland Home Depot, delivering the letter below. The letter appeals to the humanity of the people running the store, asking them to stand in solidarity with day laborers, to speak out against ICE’s cruelty, and to speak up for the humane treatment of immigrant workers.

To: Home Depot Executive Leadership
The Home Depot, Inc.
2455 Paces Ferry Rd SE
Atlanta, GA 30339

Re: Oakland Home Depot 

4000 Alameda Ave, 

Oakland, CA 94601

Dear Home Depot Leadership,

We write to you not only as concerned members of the community, but as neighbors, customers, workers, and human beings witnessing a crisis. 

Your stores are not just places of business. They are daily gathering points for day laborers, homeowners, and immigrant workers seeking honest livelihoods. You are part of the fabric of our community. But right now, that fabric is being torn.

On August 14th, a day laborer fleeing ICE agents was tragically struck by a vehicle outside your Monrovia, CA location. This is not an isolated event. Armed and masked federal agents have been using your parking lots to detain individuals without warning—turning places of work and commerce into sites of fear and violence. People have been abducted. Families are being torn apart.

We ask you: in the face of this—will you remain silent? Or will you act?

Immigrant workers and their families are the backbone of our cities—and a vital part of your customer base and workforce. They deserve dignity, safety, and basic humanity. That is why we are calling on Home Depot to take immediate, concrete action:

Street Level Health Project is a member of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. As a network of over 70 organizations we make these national demands of Home Depot

• Publicly condemn the ICE raids. Tell the truth about what is happening on and near your properties: Immigration agents are violently, recklessly and targeting brown people. Their evidently unlawful actions are terrorizing and put customers, workers and the community in danger.
• Demand Trump’s administration to stop sending federal agents to Home Depot.The Trump Administration must call off ICE and partner agencies onto Home Depot premises to conduct surveillance, commit violence, or carry out unlawful kidnappings. 
• Keep all people safe. When ICE enters  Home Depot premises, store managers should secure the building (close and lock the doors and gates) to keep agents out and to keep customers and all workers (including day laborers) safe inside.
• Establish consistent policy and protocols for all Home Depot employees (especially store managers) across the country. As a private business, Home Depot has the right to lock down stores and deny access to all federal agents and bounty hunters who do not present a valid judicial warrant to justify an arrest. 
• Support detained victims and their families. Provide resources to families that have been harmed by raids on Home Depot property, for needs like financial support and legal defense.
• Release the videos. Share with the public all security video and other footage of enforcement actions at Home Depot stores, to help in documenting unlawful assaults, harassment and arrests of customers and workers. 

Over the years Oakland day laborers have been seen as “undesirable” or “public nuisance” and that they do not contribute positively to the environment in and around Oakland Home Depot.  Day laborers often seek work at informal public sites like street corners, facing environmental exposure and risks such as traffic, poor sanitation, harassment and robberies while waiting for work, as well as worker exploitation and wage theft. 

Every day these workers risk their lives for a better life for themselves and their families and despite these issues they face on a daily basis they continue to fight for survival at these day labor stops like the Oakland Home Depot. Over the years day laborers at this site have shared stories of harassment, discrimination, and mistreatment at the hands of Oakland Home Depot staff and security guards. Organizers have witnessed this treatment firsthand when providing services and education to day laborers and have even experienced it personally.  With the ever-growing immigration enforcement, xenophobia, racism in this current political environment these risks further increase, affecting their physical, mental, and spiritual health. 

Despite all this, every day Oakland Day Laborers contribute to the local economy and ecosystem of Oakland Home Depot and the City of Oakland as a whole. They are Oakland Home Depot’s customers, whether it’s at your food court, buying material at the store, or working with employers that frequent the store. We demand that these workers be treated with respect and dignity and humanely by Oakland Home Depot and all parties involved on these property. 

Local Oakland Home Depot Demands from Day Laborers

• Demand that Oakland Home Depot commit to creating a safe, welcoming space for all people, regardless of immigration status.
• Demand that Oakland Home Depot not collaborate with ICE or any departments working on immigration enforcement on property. Make Oakland Home Depot an ICE Free Zone!
  • This includes rejecting the use of surveillance technology on its property for intimidation or surveillance (i.e. FLOCK and other surveillance technology).
• Stop harassment, discrimination, and threats of calling ICE or law enforcement on Oakland day laborers from Oakland Home Depot management, staff, and security guards. The vulnerability of the day laborer to threats of ICE calls is a well- documented issue, often used as a tool for intimidation and control.
• Negotiate with Oakland day laborers and provide a “safe waiting work zone” so workers and employers can have a safe place to negotiate and be picked up for work. 
• Provide access to trash cans and bathrooms without being harassed by security guards.
• Treat Oakland day laborers with respect and dignity regardless of immigration or employment status.

Oakland Home Depot: be in solidarity with Oakland Day Laborers! 

Do not enable federal agents to abduct day laborers,immigrants, and people of color on your property.

Defend and protect Oakland’s immigrant communities. Join thousands of Bay Area residents to say ICE out of Home Depot! Immigrants belong in the Bay Area! 

We await your response. Until then, we will continue to organize, speak out, and demand that Home Depot becomes a space where everyone—regardless of immigration status—can feel safe, seen, and valued.

In solidarity,

Concerned Residents of Oakland, CA

Street Level Health Project

Alliance for Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE Oakland)

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME Local 3299)

Bay Resistance

Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ)

East Bay Alliance for Sustainable Economy (EBASE)

East Bay Democratic Socialist of America (EBDSA)

Immigrant Defense Committee  

Indivisible East Bay 

Oakland Education Association (OEA)

Service Employees International Union (SEIU Local 1021)