Organizers of Last Week’s Protest Defending Recipients of Temporary Protected Status Return to Royce’s Office Demanding He Take Action

Brea, CA— Around one hundred organizers, TPS recipients and allies from District 39 returned to Ed Royce’s congressional district office a week after a man drove his car through a protest calling on Royce to preserve TPS and create a path to residency for the 320,000 people currently under the program in the United States.

While none of the protesters were seriously injured in last week’s incident, it adds to a growing trend of vehicular assaults directed at non-violent protests. Multiple videos of the incident show the driver yelling as protesters march in the crosswalk in front of his car before he accelerates into a line of protesters.

Despite the videos, which were widely circulated, the man was released from custody and has yet to be charged. A high-ranking police official said there was no indication the man intended to harm anyone.

“Our demands are that Ed Royce take steps to support renewing TPS, and acknowledge that what happened at our march last week was a hate crime,” said Ada Briceño, copresident of UNITE HERE Local 11.

The coalition of UNITE HERE Local 11, CHIRLA, Indivisible 39, CARECEN, and SEIU-USWW called on Representative Royce take action on preserving TPS and that he commit to pursuing charges against the man who drove his car into the crowd. After the conference, the crowd marched to the door of Royce’s office as a group of TPS recipients delivered a letter to the congressman.

“We are delivering a letter to Representative Royce with pictures of TPS recipients and family members who will be separated if TPS expires. After the events last week, a lot of us were scared to come back here, but this is what it will take to keep our families together,” said Isabel Barrera, Local 11 member and TPS recipient originally from El Salvador.

TPS is set to expire for recipients from Nicaragua and Honduras this Monday, November 6.

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UNITE HERE Local 11 represents over 29,000 hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona that work in hotels, restaurants, universities, convention centers and airports.