Día de los Muertos Protest Planned at Pasadena Home Depot After Immigration-Linked Deaths

Community organizers are planning to hold a Día de los Muertos protest outside the Home Depot on Walnut Street in Pasadena on Saturday at 10 a.m., honoring three laborers who died in separate incidents linked to immigration enforcement across the country and calling for corporate accountability following what they say was a recent ICE operation at the Pasadena store.

The memorial, part of the National Day Labor Organizing Network’s “Disappeared in America” campaign, will feature an altar, music, and speakers outside the store at 2881 E. Walnut St. in East Pasadena.

Organizers say the event responds to a Sept. 23 incident in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents reportedly detained two customers at the location.

Sharon Nicholls, a local organizer who witnessed the incident, said, “I showed up and they detained two customers, two people that had just finished with their shopping, and they took them.”

The altar is planned to commemorate Carlos Roberto Montoya Valdés, Jaime Alanis Garcia, and Silverio Villegas González. Montoya, a day laborer, died Aug. 14 after being struck by a vehicle on Interstate 210 following an ICE raid at the Monrovia Home Depot. ICE stated Montoya was not being pursued, but witnesses dispute that account. Nicholls claims Home Depot has surveillance footage of the incident but has not released it.

Alanis, a farmworker, fell through a greenhouse roof during a July 12 enforcement operation in Camarillo. DHS said he climbed the roof voluntarily and that medivac was called immediately.

Villegas González was fatally shot by federal agents during a Sept. 12 traffic stop in Franklin Park, Illinois, and died Sept. 26. DHS claimed he resisted arrest and dragged an officer, but bodycam footage later showed the agent describing his injuries as “nothing major.”

Nicholls said ICE presence at Home Depot locations has intensified since June, citing CNN and Wall Street Journal reports that federal directives targeted day laborers at retail sites. She added that workers rebuilding fire zones in Pasadena and Altadena are being “terrorized” by enforcement actions.

Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo told FOX 11 LA that the two detained individuals were waiting for buses to Altadena construction sites. According to Bay Area Council data, about 75% of construction laborers in Los Angeles County are immigrants, nearly half without legal status.

Home Depot told NBC Los Angeles it receives no advance notice of ICE operations and instructs employees to avoid agent interaction.

The company said claims that day laborers are part of its business model are “incorrect.” Organizers have asked Home Depot to bar ICE access without warrants and to close store doors during raids.

“Many people are calling for boycotts. This is what we’re looking at now, boycotting Home Depot,” Nicholls said.

Saturday’s event is open to the public. People can register at mobilize.us or attend without signing up.