On Monday, dozens of businesses across the country closed in Southern California and across the country, schools reported low attendance, and families stayed at grocery stores on a “day without immigration” while they were in the grocery store.
Actions that began circulating on social media last week called for immigrants to skip work, keep kids home from school and avoid shopping on Mondays.
Businesses across the United States have announced their closure on social media. Quinceañera boutique in Omaha. A coffee shop in Salt Lake City. Used cars in Baltimore. An accounting firm in Pasco, Washington.
Monday’s protests took similar action nationwide in February 2017 in February 2017, a month after President Trump began his term. Then, like Monday, students stay away from school and workers do not report jobs, including staff at the Senate coffee shop in Washington, D.C.
Los Angeles activist Wendy Guardado helped organize the action, saying she counted 250 businesses nationwide that maintained solidarity with the movement. Other institutions find themselves lacking workers. At Abbey Food & Bar, a popular LGBTQ+ nightclub in West Hollywood, the kitchen has been closed due to staff shortages.
She said Monday’s action was just the beginning and she heard that many people were unable to spend a day off work, with just a week’s notice.
“There’s still a lot to do because Trump has four years,” Guadaldo said.
According to regional data, the entire Los Angeles unified, with attendance rate of 66% on Monday, compared with 93% for the whole year and 91% last week. Guadado said three district teachers told her that their classrooms were empty. Others told her that their classroom was almost empty.
Jonah Ocampo, 5, protested President Trump’s immigration policy in Santa Ana on February 3, 2025.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
A spokesman for Ingwood Unified School District said it experienced “more than usual student absences” in the school. San Diego Unified School District SUPT. Fabi Bagula noted that some students and families are participating in the protests, but there are not many of them now.
A teacher at Palmeli Street Elementary School in southern Los Angeles was asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak out, saying 390 of the school’s 670 students were not absent Monday, and many parents said it was because of protests.
At the El Sol Academy in Santa Ana, up to 50 students will miss a day at the school, Sara Flores, the school’s chief student and family support officer. On Monday, 180 did not appear.
Mario Ledesma, 31, decided to close his store in Sacramento, Pa’l Norte Work & Western Wear.
Ledesma said his father immigrated to the United States from Mexico decades ago and once sold western boots at local flea markets. Ledesma later sold boots, too, switched to online sales during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was so successful that he opened an entity four months ago.
For Ledesma, closing his fledgling store in a day is more important than any profit he can make. The name of his store means North.
“In honor of our people coming to this country to find the sacrifice of the American Dream, I named my business,” he wrote on Instagram. “We live in moments of attacking the American Dream…let us show them that we don’t have us.” The north does not exist” – The United States will not exist.
Demonstrators blocked part of St. Ana Boulevard to protest President Trump’s immigration policy in Santa Ana on February 3, 2025.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Among the restaurants closed to show solidarity with protesters is the El Salvador restaurant Golfo de Fonseca in Pacoma. Yonatan Franco, 30, is an undocumented immigrant who arrived from El Salvador in 2015 and wants to order Pupusas lunch. He and his father drove in the black Nissan Xterra at noon and found the restaurant dark.
Franco said he chose not to buy at large businesses such as McDonald’s, Target and Walmart, given the wave of Trump’s orders for deportation.
“Those big stores are supporting Trump, and there are a lot of Latinos in swaps that sell clothes and we can support people who are struggling with the business,” he said.
In Santa Ana, Reyna is a restaurant chef who doesn’t want to provide her last name because she has no legal status in the country, decided to get the kids out of school and plans to give up grocery shopping on the day.
Reiner is on vacation. But when a friend texted her over the weekend, she decided to join.
“We are part of this economy,” she said. “Many of our immigrants here are not hurting anyone. We just want something better.”
Although the extent of business closures has not been immediately clear, experts say meaning should not be measured in dollars and cents.
“This type of mobilization is more effective,” said Victor Narro, program director of the UCLA Labor Center program. He said Monday’s protests highlighted the fact that as the population grows and the birth rate drops, the country will have to rely more on the immigrant labor force to keep the economy strong.
Several California restaurants are posting on social media and they are closing to support the action: in Oakland, La Casa de Maria. In La Mirada, Barbacoa Los Gueros. From Anaheim to Venice, there are all 10 locations for popular Teddy Red Tortillas.
Antojitos Puebla in downtown Los Angeles also announced that it would close the day. On Facebook, the restaurant wrote: “Immigration is the backbone of our country.”
Thousands of march in downtown Los Angeles protested President Trump’s immigration policies.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Also in the downtown area, protesters resumed demonstrations on Monday that closed Highway 101 daily in amid Trump’s recent executive action against immigration. The action is significantly smaller and there is no sign of another highway taking over.
Outside Los Angeles City Hall, the howling of helicopters was drowned by cow horns and fiery chants. 18-year-old Katherine Sanchez couldn’t help but smile.
“It’s very heart-warming,” Sanchez stood with his sister and parents on Monday afternoon. She held a sign that read, “Your racism is not going to end our power.”
Burbank High School senior heard about the demonstrations at Tiktok, and he said she and many of her friends skipped the school to attend the protests.
Sanchez, father, Esteban Sanchez, is the child of Mexican immigrants, and is frustrated by Trump’s recent news about immigration operations.
“I was born here and I feel like a foreigner,” he said.
“I thought it wasn’t this country,” he added, and rushed to the spring as they drove off the roadside and joined the protesters.
Thousands of rally during the parade in downtown Los Angeles.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
In downtown Santa Ana, hundreds of protesters similarly gathered across the federal court buildings of Sasscer Park and Ronald Reagan. The car was driving on the narrow nearby streets while honking the horns at the pedestrians. Some cars parked in traffic between the park and the court and began to spin the tires into place, filled with smoke.
Fernanda Hernandez, 19, led some of her friends along the Fourth Street of the historic Latino Corridor in Orange County. She held a sign and said, “My parents work harder than your president.” Both of her parents are undocumented immigrants from Mexico.
“Trump wants us to be scared, but we can’t.” We need to stand up for our people. He wants us to leave whether we are illegal or not. ”
Times worker Soudi Jimenez, Howard Blume, Daniel Miller and Jaweed Kaleem contributed to the report.
