Community members gathered for free food, clothes and workshops on handling interactions with law enforcement
By MADELYN SEVIGNY — city@theaggie.org
On Oct. 27, NorCal Resist hosted a “Know Your Rights” training at the Davis Night Market.
The Davis Night Market is a group that redistributes excess food to members of the community on weekday evenings from 9 to 11 p.m., aiming to “reduce our community’s carbon footprint and increase equitable access to food through organized collective action,” according to their official website.
NorCal Resist is a Sacramento-based grassroots organization that provides mutual aid, community resources and support for immigrants. One of the programs that they provide include “Know Your Rights” trainings, where individuals can learn their constitutional rights, how to assert these rights, how to navigate interactions with United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and what to do if ICE comes to their door.
Giselle Garcia, the programs director at NorCal Resist, presented information on identifying ICE and law enforcement vehicles, what kind of language and tone to use when interacting with law enforcement and how to ensure the validity of a judicial warrant.
“[NorCal Resist “Know Your Rights” training] focuses on both […] interactions with regular criminal law enforcement, as well as immigration law enforcement agencies,” Garcia said. “How you should invoke your rights, but also, [what the] best practices [are] for documenting to hold any kind of government abuses [and] to hold officers accountable.”
Garcia explained the goal of “Know Your Rights” trainings and how the information they teach can impact communities.
“It’s always important to know what your rights are because, at its core, it’s about […] not incriminating yourself,” Garcia said. “We’re not here to make law enforcement’s jobs easier, we’re not obstructing, but we are not going to be giving them the tools and the information to harm our community. That’s what ‘Know Your Rights’ is about. It’s about empowering yourself and those around you to keep each other safer. And especially in the case of immigration, it can be the difference of not opening the door, you know, whether someone gets detained or not. So we just want to make sure that we’re emphasizing all of those kinds of nuances.”
Before the presentation, community members were offered bread, fresh fruits and vegetables, sandwiches, homemade cookies and more.
In addition to the food given out by the Night Market, warm clothing and shoes were also offered to the public by volunteers from the Big Gay Garden (BGG).
Bailey Kallas, a volunteer with the BGG, explained the purpose of the garden and their connection to the Night Market.
“The Big Gay Garden is a local queer community garden,” Kallas said. “This is the first time we’ve done our little pop-up closet. We’re hoping to do it more often. […] We just realized that it’s getting cold and we had a lot of stuff from [our] yard sale.”
An organizer with the Night Market, who wishes to remain anonymous, highlighted how the Night Market seeks to remove barriers immigrants face that make it difficult for them to access resources through a traditional food bank.
“Right now, if you’re trying to access something like a food bank, often you have to have proof of residency,” the organizer said. “That can be more intimidating if you’re asked to provide something like an ID or a bank note […] That knocks a lot of people out, and it’s a lot more intimidating to go to an official place where law enforcement might be, […] and often that also happens during the day and a lot of immigrants, and just everybody, is working during the day […] This is at night and there’s absolutely no requirements.”
Lilly Marie, another organizer and Night Market volunteer, elaborated on how the event being held at night helps include community members who may be hindered by work schedules.
“A lot of beneficial community-geared trainings like this, a lot of that information, […] can feel inaccessible,” Marie said. “If you’re a regular person, especially if you’re an immigrant, maybe you’re working two jobs, you work 9-to-5 and you’re not able to do things if they’re during your work hours to kind of meet that need. We’re able to help provide and remove that barrier.”
In her presentation, Garcia emphasized the importance of community action.
“Everyone should be doing something,” Garcia said. “And that can look like 5 minutes of work a week or 5 hours, whatever your capacity lends itself to. But there’s so many things that you can do, whether you volunteer at our court watch program where we’re observing immigration proceedings and making sure people come out of their hearings, or accompanying folks to their ICE check-ins or appointments at the Social Security Office or helping us with translations. […] There’s so many things that you could be doing, but you need to do something, […] so find what it is that you can and want to do and do it, because it’s not the moment for silence or for standing still.”
To learn more about NorCal Resist and their work in immigration advocacy, visit their website.
Written By: Madelyn Sevigny — city@theaggie.org
