Pasadena-Based Immigrant Rights Group Among Organizers of ‘La Defensa del Pueblo’ Summit

National Day Laborer Organizing Network, or NDLON, which is headquartered in Pasadena, is one of four organizations announcing a Sept. 6 summit in response to what organizers call the Trump administration’s attacks on grassroots groups.

Organizers plan to announce details of the summit Tuesday, Sept. in Los Angeles, according to the core host, Ventura County Defensa. The other organizations hosting the summit are 50501 SoCal and United Teachers Los Angeles.

NDLON is a national nonprofit network that organizes and advocates for day laborers, other migrant workers and low-wage workers, and it lists staff positions at the Pasadena Community Job Center. Its work includes worker-center development, wage-theft and workplace-rights campaigns, leadership training, and advocacy on labor, civil and immigrant-rights issues.

VC Defensa, a volunteer-based immigrant rights organization in Ventura County, said the event’s full title is “La Defensa del Pueblo: A Summit to End the Terror Against the People.”

The summit organizers intend to bring together immigrant rights activists, faith leaders, labor unions, community organizations, civil rights advocates, legal workers and all people committed to defending democratic rights and civil liberties from across the country, according to the advisory.

Featured speakers include state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Pasadena, whose 25th Senate District covers Pasadena, Altadena and much of the San Gabriel Valley, and Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants.

Also scheduled is Keith Porter Sr., the father of Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old man fatally shot by an off-duty Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer outside a Northridge apartment complex on Dec. 31, 2025. The Department of Homeland Security has said the off-duty officer went outside to investigate what he believed was an active-shooter situation and fired after Porter pointed a rifle at him. Porter’s family has disputed that account, saying he was firing celebratory rounds into the air on New Year’s Eve. The Los Angeles Police Department opened an investigation into the shooting.

The group said the summit’s urgency is underscored by Task Force Group 4, a Department of Homeland Security unit whose existence was reported by The New York Times in March and which the Times described as assigned to investigate organizations involved in illegal activities during protests. VC Defensa said the unit was established to scrutinize and intimidate it.

VC Defensa tied that effort to National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, which President Donald Trump issued Sept. 25, 2025, directing federal agencies to investigate and disrupt what the memorandum calls organized political violence. VC Defensa has described the memorandum as a blueprint the administration is using to classify dissent against its billionaire agenda as “domestic terrorism.”

Information about the summit, including a timeline of events, is available at https://defensadelpueblo.org.