Sunday, March 29, 2026

Faith Groups to Stage Hymn-Singing Protest at Downtown Pasadena Target Over DEI Rollback, ICE Concerns

[photo credit: Yelp]

The Palm Sunday action, organized by Mennonite Action and All Saints Church, is part of a national campaign targeting the retailer

Greater Los Angeles Mennonite Action and All Saints Church are staging a nonviolent protest at the Downtown Pasadena Target store this afternoon, bringing a national campaign against the retailer to a Pasadena sidewalk one day after the No Kings 3.0 march drew crowds to the city.

The protest is part of Mennonite Action’s “Sing Down the Doors at Target” campaign, which has spread to Target stores across the country. Organizers are demanding that Target restore its rolled-back diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments and take a public stand against Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in its stores — demands that follow months of sustained civic engagement centered on downtown Pasadena’s faith communities.

Participants plan to gather for prayer at All Saints Church, 132 N. Euclid Ave., at 2 p.m. before walking to the Target at 777 E. Colorado Blvd. for what organizers describe as a “song-filled action” from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., according to the event listing on the Action Network platform.

The protest targets two corporate decisions by Target Corporation. In January 2025, the Minneapolis-based retailer announced it would terminate its REACH diversity initiative, restructure its Supplier Diversity program, cease tracking DEI hiring goals, and withdraw from third-party diversity rankings. Target said the changes were part of a broader “neutrality” approach and to stay “in tune with the evolving external landscape,” according to a Reuters report.

Then on January 8, federal immigration agents tackled and detained two Target employees during their shift at a store in Richfield, Minnesota, according to multiple reports. Both workers are U.S. citizens. Video of the detention spread on social media. Nearly 300 Target employees subsequently signed an internal letter calling on company leadership to prevent ICE agents from entering Target properties, according to Newsweek.

Pasadena Now cannot locate any Target Corporation public statement specifically addressing the Pasadena protest.

The company’s new CEO, Michael Fiddelke, who took over February 1, addressed employees in a video message after the Richfield incident but did not publicly call for ICE to leave Target premises or commit to posting Fourth Amendment signage, according to media reports.

Organizers have stated three demands, according to materials posted on the Action Network event page: that Target publicly restore its DEI initiatives with clear, measurable goals, publicly call for an immediate end to the ICE surge in California, and publicly call for Congress to stop funding ICE; that Target honor its $2 billion commitment to Black-owned businesses and suppliers; and that Target affirm it will become a “4th Amendment workplace” by posting signage denying entrance to immigration agents without signed judicial warrants and train staff on how to respond if immigration agents enter.

All Saints Church, the Episcopal parish across from Pasadena City Hall, has been a center of immigration defense organizing in recent months. In January, approximately 800 people packed the church for an ICE defense community patrol training organized by Grupo Auto Defensa — far exceeding organizers’ expectations.

The church declared itself a sanctuary church in 1983 during the Central American refugee crisis. Its Priest-in-Charge, the Rev. Tim Rich, was among the confirmed speakers at Saturday’s No Kings 3.0 march, where he spoke about the challenge of calling for both resistance and love.

“Love can be every bit a resisting force and every bit something that gives us hope as much as sort of the force of brutality and fear and terror,” Rich said at Saturday’s No Kings 3.0 rally.

The Palm Sunday timing is deliberate, organizers said. The Action Network event description frames the protest in Christian theological terms, describing Palm Sunday as a day that “remembers a procession that confronted empire not with violence, but with courage, clarity, and public witness,” according to the organizing materials.

Mennonite Action, the national organization behind the campaign, was founded in November 2023 and is a fiscally sponsored project of Nonviolence International, according to the organization’s website. Similar protests have taken place at Target stores in Philadelphia, Seattle, Iowa City, Goshen, Indiana, and at Target’s downtown Minneapolis store, where more than 100 clergy and community members gathered on January 15, according to press reports.

Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, a Los Angeles-based economic justice organization, organized a separate Target protest in Hollywood on February 11 with demands nearly identical to those of the Pasadena action, according to reports.

The Downtown Pasadena Target at 777 E. Colorado Blvd. is open Sunday from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. The store is located in the former Robinson’s department store building.

The No Kings 3.0 march on Saturday — one of more than 3,000 protests held nationwide — began at Pasadena City College and proceeded west along Colorado Boulevard to Pasadena City Hall. It was organized by San Gabriel Foothills Indivisible and the ACLU.

All Saints Church has branded the two events its “Weekend of Justice,” according to the church’s website and social media posts.