Human Shield Planned Along Woodbury Road to Protect Altadena’s Rebuild Workers

The day laborers who hauled away ash and framed new walls across Altadena after last year’s fire plan to return to the same streets on Saturday — this time not to work, but to stand shoulder to shoulder.

Hundreds are expected b organizers to link arms Saturday morning in a human chain along Woodbury Road, from Lincoln Avenue to Lake Avenue, in an action the National Day Laborer Organizing Network calls “La Muralla Humana,” the Human Shield.

The Pasadena-based network timed the event to one year after immigration raids swept the Los Angeles region, and it says the chain is meant to protect the immigrant workers who rebuilt after the Eaton Fire and who now labor under the threat of detention.

In the weeks that followed the Eaton Fire, day laborers organized through NDLON and its Pasadena Community Job Center became early responders, clearing debris, hauling ash, and distributing donations, often at little or no cost to families returning to contaminated homes.

Advocates have called the immigrant laborers “second responders.” The job center channeled that effort into support for 27,000 people, the Christian Science Monitor reported.

Then the immigration raids reached Pasadena. Federal enforcement operations across the region began June 6; on June 18, ICE agents detained six people at a bus stop on Orange Grove Boulevard. Mayor Victor Gordo said the men had been waiting for a bus to Altadena to help rebuild.

The City Council voted days later to condemn the operations, and Rep. Judy Chu, who represents Pasadena, cited “multiple alarming ICE operations” in her District. The Department of Homeland Security has described its Los Angeles operations as targeting “criminal illegal aliens.”

The chain is set for 9 a.m. to noon, with participants carrying hand-painted banners reading “ICE Out. Hands Off Dena” and “Who Protects the Hands Rebuilding Our Homes?” NDLON has called it “a living act of love, protection, and solidarity.”