How We Shut Down Concord’s Immigration Court

Concord, CA is changing. Downtown, copy-paste box apartments are rising up out of the ground, while the old run-down cafes and hot dog joints are replaced by breweries and boba spots. This is all to be expected in a rapidly gentrifying East Bay dominated by YIMBY politics. 

However, when I pulled up to the new Concord Immigration Court, I witnessed a change I had not been expecting: donned in keffiyeh and masks, mom jeans and Disneyland shirts, a group of 50+ community members were chasing a group of five masked feds around the back of the building. They yelled “Fuck you pigs!” and “Go to hell.” They carried “No Kings” signs and recorded the cops with cell phones.

When I got closer, one woman described how she had been ripped off of the ICE truck by one of the agents while attempting to block it. Another woman, wrapped in a hug by one of her friends, sobbed and spoke loudly in Spanish. Protestors milled about the entrance to the building, pointing out the feds inside while an employee padlocked the entrance. To the side a lawyer spoke to the news, expressing reserved frustration at the kidnapping of his clients from the court. 

As more and more people pulled up in groups of two and three, a member of the crowd with a megaphone directed people to form a large circle and begin walking, blocking the main entrance to the building and controlling almost all traffic in and out of the parking lot. We chanted “Whose streets? Our streets!” and “La policía, la migra, la misma porqueria!”

Across the street, the working-class Latino tenants of the Ellis Lake neighborhood watched and recorded; a few jogged across Clayton Road, dodging the cars overwhelmingly honking in support. By the peak of the protest, more than 200 people were outside the court, and an announcement was made: we had shut it down for the day. The hearings would be rescheduled. Though four of our neighbors had been kidnapped, we had prevented any more action by ICE and the feds that day.

By the peak of the protest, more than 200 people were outside the court, and an announcement was made: we had shut it down for the day.

As the action wrapped, an organizer told us that the Concord Police Department was gathering officers and cars at Park ‘n’ Shop, a nearby shopping center serving the working-class community and students of downtown Concord. The cops had mostly kept their distance during the rally, but there were concerns they might come to clear us out soon. I thought of Los Angeles, and couldn’t help but think of a near future where Concord PD and Contra Costa County Sheriffs protect ICE agents while they conduct raids. We decided to clear out. Save our energy for future action.

Concord is changing. We’re not fucking around. And we’re working to make sure that no more of our neighbors are taken from us by ICE, by the cops. La misma porqueria.