This Valentine’s Day, activists in cities around the U.S. launched a Day Without Immigrants protest.
The idea for the protest began on the social media platform TikTok — where Carlos Eduardo Espina has amassed a following of more than 2.5 million creating Spanish language content about immigration issues.
Espina, whose family came from Uruguay when he was 5 years old, told the Los Angeles Times the protest aimed show the influence of immigrant communities and to put pressure on the Biden administration to do more to push meaningful reform measures forward for undocumented people.
He called on immigrants to avoid going to work or school on Valentine’s Day and to not spend money. Events have since taken off in Washington, D.C.; Chicago and other cities.
Back in 2017, activists launched a similar Day Without Immigrants protest over former President Trump’s plans to build a border wall and ramp up deportations.
