Businesses close shop, workers and kids stay home on Monday as part of nationwide effort, which had little to no advance publicity
On Monday, Feb 3, 2025 many businesses closed in Fort Bragg. Many people spent no money and kids stayed home from school, participating in a “A Day Without Immigrants”. This was part of a nationwide protest against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. The initiative aimed at demonstrating the fundamental role immigrants play in the U.S. economy.
The day had been planned for May this year but was moved up to Monday. There was very little publicity beforehand or information on who had launched the event and how people heard about it. Historian Julie Parker informed me about it when the day was almost over.
There were massive protests on Sunday were also not well publicized. In LA Highway 101 was closed for several hours by protesters.
Apparently some sort of protest went on in Fort Bragg.
Viewing over 20 national news reports, none said who had planned it, or gave the general public notice so they could participate. Almost all the stories were filed afterwards. Both the protests and the “Day Without Immigrants” happened in at least 30 states. Hard to verify, as the coverage was mostly from local TV news stations.
There have been many of these days without immigrants held since President George W. Bush enacted strict punishments for companies who hired undocumented workers. The protests have never been sponsored by any major group and have no mechanism of communicating with the press, even though their image is to make people realize how much Latino people do for the local economy.
Might they have a much bigger impact if they told everyone in advance?
There was a day without Immigrants held in 2016 after Trump was elected the first time. Our world has changed like never before since then.
Fort Bragg Schools saw a notable difference in attendance on Monday when 38 percent of students were absent district-wide, said FBUSD Superintendent Joseph Aldridge.
“In a typical day we have absences between 5 percent to 10 percent,” said Aldridge.
Los Gallitos and Noyo River Grill were among the businesses who closed on Monday for the 2025 protest. The owner of Los Gallitos posted this on their Facebook page:
“I cannot open without my hard-working dedicated employees and customers.”
Noyo River Grill originally did not say why they were closing on their Facebook page, but when local Billie Cortez asked why they posted this:
“Billie Cortez in support of our immigrant/Mexican community, our staff expressed wanting to support as well so we decided to close today. We will reopen tomorrow.”
I talked to one other business owner who had closed but feared a reaction from Trump supporters. The breakdown of ethics in our society comes from the top down. We should not be surprised to see increased gang activity in the environment of total chaos that we are in right now.
