Previous AIRR protest. | Photo courtesy of Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation (AIRR)
Previous AIRR protest. | Photo courtesy of Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation (AIRR)

Julia Williams

Editor-in-Chief

As a sea of red enveloped Kansas City Sunday, Feb. 9, one local organization joined forces with its 2025 Super Bowl opposing city to rally behind a different kind of team.

“Super Bowl Without Migrants” — an initiative, which began in Philadelphia, Pa — is a week-long protest sponsored by Kansas City nonprofit organization, Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation (AIRR) and Philadelphia-local organizations.

The protest — which started on Super Bowl Sunday and will extend throughout the week — asked for any person located within the Kansas City Metropolitan area, or Philadelphia, Pa, to stay home throughout the day. This included a refrain from any economical participation. However, these organizations did not discourage people from attending church, Sunday or watching the football game. Instead, people were asked to watch the game indoors, in a home, in place of a public setting. 

Throughout the week of Feb. 10 through 14, this protest challenges Kansas City and Philadelphia residents alike to avoid corporate shopping and on Friday, Feb. 14, the protest will conclude with encouragement to support local, immigrant-owned businesses in both cities, respectively, AIRR Program Coordinator, Itzel Vargas-Valenzuela said in an interview, Friday. 

Vargas-Valenzuela shared that a former coworker from the Mexican Consulate, who now resides in Philadelphia, invited her and AIRR to partner with several Philadelphia organizations and restaurants — including the Association of Mexican Business Owners of Philadelphia, Philly Tacos and La Roma, among others, according to the press release — who had already set this initiative in motion, once the 2025 Super Bowl teams were set. 

“The idea is not to just show the labor impact, but additionally the purchasing power of immigrants as consumers,” AIRR Communications Consultant, Sam (last name withheld per request) said in an interview, Friday. “We have economic power as workers, consumers and employers to be seen and heard and make that impact.”

Within the month of February, Kansas City has already participated in two demonstrations related to immigration rights — including one Saturday, Feb. 1, on the Country Club Plaza and a second Monday, Feb. 3 throughout the Metro — which many Northeast immigrant-owned businesses participated in — by the name of  “Day without Immigrants,” that encouraged business owners to close their doors for the day and for residents to stay home. 

These recent protests are in response to 10 immigration-related Executive Orders — which were signed and issued  Jan. 22 by President Donald J. Trump on his first day of his second term in the White House —that range anywhere from expansion of expedited removal to government fingerprints, according to the American Immigration Council. 

The Immigration and Nationality Act and Article II of the constitution protects the president and congress to pass and execute these orders. These laws additionally grant the government’s ability— through the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice and Department of State— to remove undocumented immigrants from the southern border of the U.S. 

However, these detentions and deportations have spread from the south to across the nation including the Kansas City metropolitan area. With government affiliated organizations including ICE, Homeland Security and Highway Patrol across Missouri and Kansas working together, individuals have been stopped and questioned regardless of citizenship status. 

Though this is not the first time this city — or country — has protested immigration, nor the first time a U.S. presidential administration has signed an order to this extent regarding citizenship. 

In 1986, 40th U.S. President Ronald Regan signed the “Immigration Reform and Control Act” into law, which enforced an employer’s hiring of an undocumented immigrant or an unauthorized worker, a criminal offense. However, this act additionally created an application process to allow those who had migrated to the U.S. prior to 1982 to apply for legal status, according to the Library of Congress. 

This act went on to assist nearly three million individuals to gain legal U.S. status, according to the Library of Congress. In 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives signed a bill to amend 36th U.S. President, Lyndon B. Johnson’s  Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965; The amendment served as the first passed congressional bill surrounding undocumented immigration and led to increased immigration restrictions, according to the Global Nonviolent Action Database. 

Large marches broke out across the nation on May 1, 2006 in response to this bill for immigrant rights and immigration reform on International Workers’ Day (May Day)  — the first general strikes to take place in the U.S. within the 21st century, according to the Global Nonviolent Action Database. 

“My mom was working at a house cleaning company,” Vargas-Valenzuela shared, Friday. “People were rallying coworkers to go on strike, someone told her boss, who said if anyone misses work, they would be fired.” 

“My mom decided to strike; She lost her job — and she didn’t care,” she said. 

This Kansas City and Philadelphia protest has focused on a general strike and serves a purpose to show what economic impact the immigrant population has on society, particularly within Kansas City.

Some of these include labor positions and offer a glimpse of the world without them.

For those in search of ways to support, AIRR suggests to explore within local neighborhoods — including Northeast — for autonomy and initiative.

This remains a time where third, fourth and fifth generations of people of color are afraid, Vargas-Valenzuela shared in an interview, Friday. Some advice she has for anyone: to resist. 

“Everyone needs to resist. Resist with the same language — legal status will not keep you safe,” She said. “We are seeing citizens being detained.”

AIRR offers resources for those in need, and those looking to get involved, including its help hotline and Know Your Rights program.

Kansas City has a Mexican Consulate (1617 Baltimore Ave.), which can provide educational resources and connections to local organizations. It additionally can offer direct support for families and individuals from Mexico. 

If a Mexican national was detained and unable to contact their family members, the consulate could reach out to their family for them. 

An exception to this support and resources, AIRR shared, includes the origin countries of Cuba and Venezuela as those countries do not possess a diplomat. 

However, if a non-Mexican national was detained, but their children were born in Mexico, the Mexican Consulate would be able to offer support for their kids.

In addition to ICE, AIRR additionally cautions Kansas City residents to look out for Missouri Highway Patrol as Missouri Executive Order 25-04 was passed between law enforcement and ICE as well as federal agencies under Homeland Security.

AIRR continues to work with additional organizations both locally and across the state and Kansas — including traveling to Jefferson City — to work to inform and educate.

Vargas-Valenzuela said she hopes AIRR can continue to connect with organizations in Philadelphia and foster those relationships — potentially leading to a national immigration movement, which, she shared, the nation has already started to see. 

“Immigrants have buying power regardless of status; Buying power is a conscious form of protest,” Sam shared in an interview, Friday.

Immigrant spending power currently sits at $7.8 billion in Missouri and $3.5 billion across the Kansas City metropolitan area, according to the American Immigrant Council and the New American Economy. 

“This is not something that will be solved within one week of activism — it is a long term fight,” Sam said. “Everyone has a part in it. We as immigrants must educate ourselves and use our consumer power to support our community, and we encourage all allies to do the same.”