In the wake of recent Butte and Tehama immigrant detentions and intensified enforcement nationwide, North State residents are organizing communities and discussing protest safety.
In Chico, a weekend of protests has been planned in response to the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents in Minneapolis, as well as to tactics in use by Immigration, Customs & Enforcement (ICE). (See protest schedule at end of article.)
ChicoSol learned this morning that many Chico High School students walked out early in the day.
But meanwhile the immigration crackdown rolls onward with what are called “targeted enforcements” in the rural North State. Sources told ChicoSol that several immigrants were detained earlier this month outside the Tehama County Superior Court in Red Bluff. A man was also detained by immigration agents at or near Butte County Superior Court earlier this month, and there have been at least two detentions in Shasta County.
In one case, a Corning woman went to the Red Bluff courthouse on Jan. 8 to resolve a traffic ticket, according to a source who asked to be identified as a community advocate. The woman was detained, taken to the ICE sub-field office in Redding briefly, and was deported or self-deported to Mexico the following day. ChicoSol is working to confirm details with people who were directly involved, and in Shasta County, the news site shastascout.org continues to examine use of the Redding ICE office.
Chico resident Ozan – a Turkish asylum seeker – was one of many North State residents who may have been taken to Redding after his detention at Butte County Superior Court in July 2025.
Ozan’s fiancée, Virginia Hauer of Paradise, said the federal agents who picked up Ozan told her he would be “checked in” at the Redding office. Ozan is jailed in an ICE detention center in Arizona, and was recently denied asylum, Hauer said.
Hauer is appealing Ozan’s case and says she needs financial help to pay the costs of his attorneys. She is raising money through a GoFundMe here.
Community organizing
The Butte Defense Equity Project (BDEP) founded by local defense attorneys, along with the state Public Defender’s Office, held a “Know Your Rights & Risks” training for protesters and activists on Jan. 25 attended by about 200 people.
Khanstoshea Zingapan and AJ Albano, legal investigators from the Sacramento National Lawyers Guild chapter, gave the audience tips on staying safe during protests and information about police tactics and Constitutional rights.
Some of their recommendations:
- Make sure your mobile phone has Advertising ID turned off to prevent future surveillance via a tool called Webloc that is used by ICE, they said, providing instructions. They recommend using airplane mode at protests;
- Filming police in public is legal in California, and if you are challenged, say aloud, “I am not interfering” from a safe distance;
- If you are a non-citizen but you have documentation giving you legal status, carry your green card or work permit with you.
Chico immigration attorney Laurie Lane attended the training and volunteered her views on the matter of carrying documentation as a general practice.
“Anyone who thinks they could be at risk of being detained by ICE should carry some evidence of their status here in the United States,” Lane told ChicoSol. “If you’re a U.S. citizen, I would suggest you carry your U.S. passport. There is profiling based on one’s color.
“Should we have to do it? No. But we’re living in different times.”
Lane noted that green card holders who have permanent legal residence are required to carry their cards with them anyway. She is also skeptical about the suggestion that people should carry copies of their documents; because copies can be easily altered they may not be convincing to federal agents.
The discussion also touched on the distinctions between a frisk and a search and between a detention and an arrest and as well dispersal orders.
“Asserting your rights does not mean they will respect them,” Zingapan reminded attendees. “But it might make it harder for them in court.”
NorCal Resist Chico has distributed what it calls “whistle kits” that include whistles and know-your-rights fliers to businesses and community members throughout the North State in recent weeks, according to social media posts.
Organizers reiterated that it’s important not to spread unverified information through texting and social media as has happened several times in Chico.
“We’re afraid that if there are too many unverified reports it might make people skeptical” when information about a verified sighting is released, an organizer said this week. “We want to make sure that when the time comes and ICE is in town, people can rely on that information.”
Voluneers – who prefer not to be identified by name – say the organization can verify reports of sightings if people send photos or other information to their phone or social media.
Multiple Chico protests planned
Chico-based organizations have planned protests for today, Saturday and Sunday. The fast pace and multiple protests, which have been growing steadily larger, mirror what is happening nationwide with strikes and protests.
“Americans are seeing in real time what an enforcement-only agenda looks like and they’re recoiling from it, they’re rejecting it,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, at a Jan. 23 American Community Media news briefing.
Cárdenas said people in general object to ICE detentions of many of the people who have been detained. “They do not support the fact that ICE is going after long-established immigrants who are not committing crimes. The attacks on immigrants are attacks on all Americans,” she said. “You are seeing a response from communities.
“We also know that this administration is not going to stop. The ICE deployment to Minneapolis was the largest in history. We’re expecting more of the same because [the Department of Homeland Security] has gotten so much money from this administration already.”
Here’s the protest schedule in Chico beginning today:
JAN. 30:
10 a.m.-11 a.m. the weekly Fascist Trump Regime protest will be held at Children’s Park at 200 W. First Street.
12 p.m.-3 p.m. Students for Quality Education will hold a protest on Trinity Lawn at Chico State.
JAN. 31:
9 a.m.-10 a.m. the Re-Sisters will hold a Pop-up protest at Mangrove and Vallombrosa avenues.
11 a.m. a coalition of groups will hold a “ICE Out for Good” protest, lining the street from the 20 Street overpass to Forest Avenue.
12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m. the Chico Peace Alliance will hold its weekly Peace Vigil at Third and Main streets downtown.
2 p.m.-3 p.m. the Veteran Action Group will hold the #FoxTakedown protest at Third and Main streets.
FEB. 1:
6 p.m. the National Nurses United Union will hold a candlelight vigil for Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti at the corner of Sixth Avenue and the Esplanade. They are asking participants to wear red.
What does protesting accomplish?
Constitutional scholar Mark Tushnet spoke on the impact of protests during the Jan. 23 briefing.
In the Civil War era, protesters in the North tried to stop the recapture of people who had escaped slavery in the South. The so-called “interferences” were largely unsuccessful, said Tushnet, a William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law emeritus at Harvard. But Tushnet said the interferences helped to galvanize public opinion, as did some of the court rulings at the time.
“You can’t count on the courts to resolve these problems, but you can use both actions on the streets and court cases as ways of explaining to people not otherwise involved why what is going on is deeply immoral and wrong,” he said.
Leslie Layton is editor of ChicoSol. This reporting had support from Aqui Estamos /Here We Stand, an immigration reporting project sponsored by American Community Media.