SAN FRANCISCO – Despite repeated assurances from the NFL and federal, and local leaders that there will be no ICE presence in and around the Super Bowl, Gabby Chavez-Lopez simply isn't buying it.
"Can you really blame us?" said Chavez-Lopez, executive director of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley, a nonprofit based in San Jose, California, a city that has seen its share of immigration enforcement operations. She won't take them at their word, she said: "Not with this presidential administration, and not with ICE in particular."
Neither will Musa Tariq, a policy coordinator for the San Francisco Bay Area Council on American-Islamic Relations. "Oh, there's definitely some anxiety and uneasiness. We don't trust any federal agency that doesn't respect its own country's Constitution and the laws that come with it."
Their concerns come as a coalition of community organizations across the Bay Area holds rallies, marches, and protests during Super Bowl week, fearing that the Big Game's heavy security presence and previous mixed messaging from federal officials could also bring heightened enforcement by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security while the sports world is watching.
Both Chavez-Lopez and Tariq attended a vibrant noontime rally and march at San Jose's Cesar Chavez Plaza on Feb 2, with the city's downtown convention center, the site of Super Bowl LX's opening night festivities, in the backdrop. They saw speaker after speaker send a declarative message: "ICE out of the Bay."
