Photo essay: San Diegans mark one year of vigils outside Otay Mesa Detention Center
The weekly Sunday demonstrations began on Día de los Muertos in 2025.
Written by Kate Morrissey, Photos by Alejandro Tamayo, Edited by Lauren J. Mapp
Dozens gathered outside Otay Mesa Detention Center on Sunday for the one-year anniversary of a weekly vigil that began with Día de los Muertos in 2025.
For a few hours every Sunday afternoon since, San Diegans from across the county have stood on the sidewalk next to the immigration detention facility run by private prison company CoreCivic to let the people held inside know they are not alone. Over the past year, that has meant gathering funds to put on detainees’ commissary accounts and even receiving notes tied to hygiene supplies and thrown over the fences to denounce conditions at the facility.
This Día de los Muertos, it also meant remembering a Guatemalan man who died at the facility the weekend prior.
“It's not just a Day of the Dead event,” said Arturo Gonzalez, a TikTok influencer who tracks Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in San Diego County. “We're out here every single Sunday, and so this is, for us, just like every other Sunday. We are here bringing love, joy and hope to the hostages.”
People demonstrate and a band performs at the anniversary of the weekly vigils at Otay Mesa Detention Center. Alejandro Tamayo/Daylight San Diego
The vigil opened with a performance from The Resizters, a protest song cover band, and many paused throughout the afternoon to pay their respects at an altar that included photos of people who have died in ICE custody.
Demonstrators pay homage to people who died in ICE custody through an altar outside Otay Mesa Detention Center. Alejandro Tamayo/Daylight San Diego
The facility no longer allows people in its custody to go outside in the yard while the demonstration is happening, but many people who have been released from Otay Mesa Detention Center told Daylight over the past year that the protests gave them hope.
