AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org.

We go now to California, where immigrant rights/labor icon Dolores Huerta addressed the “No Kings” rally Saturday in Watsonville.

DOLORES HUERTA: People here that are right now being arrested, deported and terrorized, they are not immigrants. They are the Indigenous people of the continent. The real immigrants to the United States came from Europe, right?

AMY GOODMAN: That was Dolores Huerta. She is 95 years old. Amidst intensifying immigration raids, she’s joined with People for the American Way and the Dolores Huerta Foundation to release a short film that shows neighbors joining together in nonviolent civil disobedience to protect a dramatized immigrant elder from being zip-tied and disappeared by ICE. It’s a dramatization. At the end of the video, the ICE agents hear protesters outside, including Dolores Huerta, and stop their arrest. She released this right before the No Kings rally and is joining us from her home in California.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Dolores. Talk about what you told the crowd and how large that gathering was for Watsonville and the significance of Watsonville, the center of migrant worker organizing in California.

DOLORES HUERTA: Yes, we had a really great rally. We had a lot of farmworkers that were there. And, of course, people lined the streets with their signs. And it was just amazing. And as you know, here in California, we were some of the first people hit by the Border Patrol and ICE, and they arrested 90 people. And of those 90 people, only one person out of the 90 had any kind of a criminal record, which could be a traffic ticket, some kind of misdemeanor.

And we just have to say to everyone, this is not about going after immigrants. This is about going after people of color. This is ethnic cleansing. This is what — exactly what is happening now in the United States of America. And God knows that we have to put a stop to it. We have never seen such horrific, horrific attacks on our people.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about ICE targeting day labor centers in Los Angeles, for example, the Van Nuys center being raided 14 times since June, the focus on labor, on workers who are out at work when they are taken?

DOLORES HUERTA: Yes, not only farmworkers, but we know our hospitality workers that work in our hotels, people who are laborers that work on construction sites. I mean, absolutely no one is safe. If you happen to be just anybody on the street that happens to be a person that looks Latino or Asian or Black, you are subjected to the kidnapping and all of these tortures. And as we know, people have already been killed. You know, this is the kind of horrific, horrific terrorism that the Latino and the people of color community are now living. And God knows that it has to stop. It has to stop.

And so, it’s so important, here in California, we’re working on Proposition 50, which will be voted on on November the 4th, and so that we can change the Congress, because we know that our Congress is the one that has allocated the funding. The millions of dollars that they’re giving to ICE and for the detention centers, this is all coming from our own government, not only the president, but the Congress right now. The current Congress, which is controlled by Republicans, is putting all of these horrible maneuvers in place right now to terrorize our community. And God knows it’s got to be stopped. And we know we have elections in 2026, and so we are now preparing the ground so that we can get more Democrats, more progressive people in the Congress, so that we could stop the madness that is happening to our community.

AMY GOODMAN: Dolores Huerta, you, Maxine Waters, other U.S. citizens have filed a petition with the Carrillo Law Firm to the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate the Trump administration for potential human rights violations, denouncing these ICE raids as a form of ethnic cleansing. Can you talk about the significance of this petition?

DOLORES HUERTA: The petition itself is actually — and the law firm is representing several U.S. citizens that have been detained, arrested or attacked by ICE agents. And so, they are actually representing U.S. citizens and people that have the documented right to work here in United States of America, and yet they have been detained, and they have been attacked by the ICE agents. And we are hoping that we can get many more people here in the United States to also sign on to that petition.

And we are asking the United Nations to please send an envoy to the United States, as ridiculous as it sounds, but to think that we have to petition the United Nations to come in and investigate what is happening to people of color here in the United States of America, just like they did in Guatemala when all of the assassinations were taking place in Guatemala and the people that were being attacked. You know, we have a similar situation here in United States, and we need — we need help. And we’re not — we can’t get it from our own government. Maybe people in the United Nations can help and assist us.

AMY GOODMAN: There were many around the country who called for a general strike, you know, bringing together the issue of labor and immigrant rights. You are a leading labor/immigrant rights activist. In your final comment in these 30 seconds, do you endorse this?

DOLORES HUERTA: Absolutely, but we know it has to take a lot of good planning to make sure it’s effective. And we also want to say to people, you can go to aclu.org/know-your-rights/immigrants-rights to help you get more information, and also to nilc.org/resources. Everybody has rights. Everybody —

AMY GOODMAN: Dolores Huerta, we want to thank you so much for being with us, renowned civil rights activist, co-founder of the United Farm Workers and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. We spoke to her at her home in Bakersfield, California. She is 95 years old.

Happy birthday to Safi Nazzal! I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.