Claiming Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) might play the role of Scrooge, organizers have canceled an annual Christmas parade held in Santa Barbara, California’s largely Hispanic east side.
The Milpas Street Holiday Parade, a decades-long tradition the coastal city’s east end, was scheduled for December 13. But now organizers claim that potential immigration raids could ruin the event and worry parade goers will be targets whether they are illegal or not.
“Although ICE raids may no longer dominate daily headlines, the threat to our Latino families documented or undocumented remains very real,” Santa Barbara Eastside Society, which organizes the parade, said in a statement to news outlets.“The presence of immigration enforcement in our region, the fear it generates, and the uncertainty families continue to face are real, immediate, and deeply felt.”
There has been no statement from the Department of Homeland Security that indicates it plans to target the Santa Barbara event.
The parade traditionally features folklorico dancers, norteño musicians and lowrider bikers.
Santa Barbara Eastside Society Board President Sebastian Aldana Jr. and Milpas Street Holiday Parade Director Tere Jurado announced the decision to cancel the event earlier last week.
Jurado told the Santa Barbara Independent:
With heavy hearts and profound respect for our neighbors, we, the Santa Barbara Eastside Society, must share a difficult decision: The 2025 Milpas Street Holiday Parade will not take place this year. This choice follows many weeks of listening, truly listening, to families, parade participants, parade volunteers, local leaders, and immigrant-rights partners who help us understand the lived experiences of our community.
The cancellation is the second large scale public event organizers have suspended this year while blaming ICE and the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal aliens with criminal records.
The Dia de los Muertos Parade, a cultural event that draws some 10,000 people downtown in early November was also canceled.
Jacqueline Inda, director of the Restorative Justice Education Center at La Casa de La Raza in Santa Barbara, usually participates in the parade. Her group aids immigrant families that fear of deportation and those arrested by ICE.
“We know there are hundreds of people that are not going out of their homes if they [don’t] have to because of the fear of being spotted, reported or identified as a person participating in a more Latino or culturally sensitive event where they would normally do so without hesitation,” Inda told the Los Angeles Times.
Organizer Jurado echoed Inda, saying arrests by federal immigration enforcement agents on the Central Coast have evoked community and “the threat to our Latino families, documented or undocumented, remains very real.”
Jurado called the parade a “space of joy, unity, and cultural pride.” The Santa Barbara Eastside Society plans to look for ways to bring the event back next year.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.