Quick Take
Anti-ICE protesters targeted a Hilton hotel in Scotts Valley at a Friday action in solidarity with Minneapolis marchers. They wanted the Hilton corporation to know that housing federal immigration-enforcement agents in Minnesota risks losing business elsewhere. Hilton did not respond to a request for comment.
Community organizers and Santa Cruz County residents turned out in Scotts Valley on Friday as part of the ICE Out For Good National Day of Solidarity, focusing their outrage on a Hilton hotel over the recent immigration enforcement operations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis.
About 100 people gathered at the intersection of La Madrona Drive and Mount Hermon Road outside the Hilton Santa Cruz/Scotts Valley. The gathering was in response to the Hilton corporation for providing accommodations for ICE agents in Minnesota. The corporation recently severed ties with a hotel in Minneapolis that refused to house ICE personnel.
“We need to get ICE out of our communities, out of the Hilton, and out of Minnesota,” said Julia Monahan, a volunteer with Indivisible Santa Cruz County.
Participants carried signs slamming the Hilton corporation for helping to facilitate federal mass deportation efforts.
“Today I came out specifically because this Hilton is in my neighborhood,” said Laura Gonzalez, a Scotts Valley resident, who held a homemade sign with the Hilton marketing tagline written in green: “It matters where you stay.”
“I think it’s time to push back against the corporations that are engaging in business that does not make us comfortable,” she continued. “It does not make us want to stay there. I’m planning on boycotting Hilton until they can support the comfort of all of us.”
Laura Smiley, the lead organizer of the action and a volunteer with Showing Up For Racial Justice-Santa Cruz County (SURJ), said she was committed to boycotting corporations associated with ICE.
“A lot of corporations will take ethics into account, but obviously some of the biggest ones don’t because money comes first,” said Smiley. “We can speak to that concern by saying, ‘We will not shop at your store. We will not stay at your hotel if you are going to participate in these crimes.’”
Ami Chen Mills, a local activist and leader with the grassroots privacy organization Get the Flock Out, urged staff of the Hilton Santa Cruz/Scotts Valley, which operates under a license agreement with Hilton Worldwide Holdings, to contact the corporation and explain what working with ICE means for business in the rest of the country.
“What they need to do is call Hilton and say, ‘This is bad news for us,’ because they are housing people who are literally violating our constitutional rights,” said Mills.
Lookout reached out to the Hilton corporation for comment Friday evening but did not hear back at the time of publication.
As night fell, around 50 people remained at the intersection, holding signs and waving at passing cars that honked back in solidarity.
“If we all stand up together, they can’t take us all,” said Laura Chatham, a retired math teacher. “And if we all stand up together, they begin to hear us.”
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