Pro-immigration rally turns heads at tech conference

Security and tech workers are among the protesters who participated in the San Francisco rally. Security and tech workers are among the protesters who participated in the San Francisco rally. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Pro-immigration rally turns heads at tech conference 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

From blocks away he heard their chants: Sí, se puede. Yes, we can.

He followed the sounds to a demonstration by more than 100 workers from Bay Area tech companies who held banners and waved signs Monday decrying President Trump’s recent efforts to keep immigrants from entering the country and deport those already here.

It was exactly what David Huffman was looking for.

Huffman, 51, is a network engineer from Los Angeles in town for the annual information security conference, RSA. He hadn’t planned on joining a protest, but when he heard the chants and saw the sign, he decided to jump in and sign up with groups that help organize tech workers to resist Trump’s policies.

This was the response organizers had hoped for when they positioned themselves kitty-corner to the center of the RSA convention at Moscone Center.

The rally, unlike others that have been spearheaded by big tech firms like Google, was centered largely around nontechnical workers, like custodians, cafeteria workers and bus drivers, rather than software engineers and programmers who carry specialty H-1B visas.

“I wanted to be here to fight against Trump and his racist policies for all immigrants and all Latinos,” Estela Ruiz, a Mexican immigrant who has worked in cafeterias at Cisco for five years, said in Spanish. “We need to come together to show the unity and strength of the people.”

Ruiz, 47, who later took the megaphone to lead the crowd in a chant, said she wasn’t usually one for protests. But this was different. This felt personal.

Last week, immigration officials arrested hundreds of people in raids throughout the country in an apparent enforcement of Trump’s order to flush out the more than 11 million immigrants who live in the country without legal permission.

Immigration authorities defended the raids as routine and said they targeted criminals — of whom Trump has promised to deport as many as 3 million — though immigrants without any criminal records were also snared.

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Some activists suggested the raids may have been the administration’s way of retaliating against cities with sanctuary policies that discourage law enforcement agencies from enforcing federal immigration laws. Most big California cities have such policies, including Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles.

“Before Trump, I think everyone was so focused on their own struggles, their own story, they didn’t really realize how connected we all are,” said Praveen Sinha, 39, a software engineer at Equality Labs. “This is about all of us now. This is about the Bay Area and who we are.”

As the protest carried on, several stragglers from RSA wandered over to check it out. Not all were sympathetic. One man ran through the crowd cursing.

Several speakers took the bullhorn to share their personal stories and decry Trump’s recent policies on immigration, including a ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries that has been on hold since the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco last week refused to reinstate Trump’s order.

Engineers and entrepreneurs were among those initially stranded overseas due to Trump’s travel ban. Should the president begin to overhaul the H-1B visa program, as he has pledged, tech companies and workers already living in the United States could be further affected.

According to a 2013 study by the Brookings Institute, nearly half of all the highly skilled workers granted H-1B visas in 2013 came to work at Bay Area firms.

Some software engineers and other tech workers at Monday’s rally said they see little distinction between their plight and the fears of lower-skilled laborers like Ruiz.

“I’ve got kids, and they need to know that this is what you do when you feel something is wrong,” Huffman said, adding he’s been donating to nonprofits and signing up for marches against Trump in recent weeks. That he ran into one during RSA was a happy accident. “Tech companies can make an impact. We all can. This is our democracy.”

Marissa Lang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mlang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Marissa_Jae