Fresno Chaffee Zoo Cancels Día de los Muertos Event Over ICE Enforcement Fears

The Fresno Chaffee Zoo has canceled its annual Día de los Muertos celebration scheduled for Sunday, November 1, citing concerns for immigrant families’ safety amid what advocacy groups and a local elected official describe as increased ICE activity in Fresno and Madera County during October.

The zoo made the “difficult decision” after consulting with partners who work with immigrant communities, according to a statement from the institution. The zoo has hosted the event for the past three years.

“We will still honor the holiday with special decorations, an art display from Arte Américas, and two ofrendas (a decorated altar) where we invite community members to visit and bring photos of their loved ones or beloved pets to be honored from October 27 through November 2, if they feel safe doing so,” the zoo’s statement read.

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The zoo will donate to Faith in the Valley, a grassroots organization working to “advance an accessible path to legal status and citizenship to all undocumented immigrants.”

Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias said “we have seen ICE terrorize our community, leaving families afraid to go to work, take their children to school, or shop for groceries,” according to KMPH. Arias and immigrant advocacy groups reported that ICE arrested more than 70 people in the Fresno and Madera area earlier this month.

The Department of Homeland Security declined to confirm or deny the reported increase in activity. “For operational security and the safety of our officers, ICE will not disclose or discuss law enforcement operations,” DHS said in a statement. “Every day, DHS enforces the laws of the nation across the country including in California.”

Arte Américas, a Fresno museum honoring Latino arts and cultures, is still planning its own Day of the Dead celebration at its downtown plaza on November 1. The museum was scheduled to provide an art display at the zoo’s canceled event.

The Breakdown

• The Fresno Chaffee Zoo canceled its November 1 Día de los Muertos event after consulting with community partners who work with immigrant families, citing safety concerns tied to reported ICE enforcement activity in Fresno and Madera County.
• The zoo will still display Day of the Dead decorations and two memorial altars from October 27 through November 2, and will donate to Faith in the Valley, an organization advocating for a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants.
• City Councilmember Miguel Arias and advocacy groups reported more than 70 ICE arrests in the area earlier in October. The Department of Homeland Security did not confirm or deny increased activity, citing operational security.
• Arte Américas, which was to provide an art display at the zoo event, is still holding its own Day of the Dead celebration at its downtown Fresno plaza on November 1.

What This Means for You

This story is about how federal immigration enforcement — a policy set by the President’s administration and carried out by ICE — is directly affecting public life in Fresno, including whether families feel safe attending a community cultural event. The decision you make in a presidential election shapes how agencies like ICE operate, including the scale and targets of enforcement in your city. When a local institution cancels a public event out of concern that attendees might be detained, that is a real consequence of who holds the White House and sets that enforcement agenda.

At the local level, Councilmember Arias’s public statement is an elected official taking a position on how federal enforcement is affecting his constituents — the kind of response, or lack of one, that voters can weigh when deciding whether that official represents their priorities.

What You Can Do

The zoo is still displaying Day of the Dead decorations and two ofrendas from October 27 through November 2, and invites visitors to bring photos of loved ones or pets to be honored if they feel safe doing so. Arte Américas is holding its own Day of the Dead celebration at its downtown plaza on November 1.

City Councilmember Miguel Arias represents District 3 on the Fresno City Council. Contact information for all council members is available at fresno.gov.

What to Watch

The Department of Homeland Security’s refusal to confirm or deny ICE activity levels in Fresno means there is no public accounting of who is being detained, under what legal standard, or whether the scale of enforcement has actually changed — only the reports from advocacy groups, an elected official, and families’ own decisions to stay home. What would settle it: ICE’s own enforcement data for the Fresno and Madera area in October, broken down by the legal basis for each arrest and detention, and whether that represents an increase over prior months or years. The agency controls that record and has chosen not to release it.

The zoo’s decision to cancel the event while still offering scaled-back displays raises the question of what specific threat the zoo and its community partners identified that made a public gathering unsafe but left a visit to view decorations acceptable. The material does not state what information the zoo received, from whom, or what standard it used to weigh the risk — only that it consulted with partners and made the call. What would clarify it: the zoo naming which partners it consulted, what those partners reported or advised, and whether the concern was about ICE activity at public events specifically or about families’ willingness to attend any gathering during this period.

More broadly: is the federal government enforcing immigration law in Fresno in a way that is making families afraid to leave their homes for work, school, groceries, or a cultural celebration — and if so, is that outcome the administration’s stated policy, or an unintended effect of how ICE is operating on the ground? Arias’s statement that families are “afraid to go to work, take their children to school, or shop for groceries” describes a community under a level of enforcement pressure that goes well beyond targeting serious criminals. If that is accurate, it is worth asking whether the administration directing this enforcement considers that outcome acceptable, and whether Fresno voters who will decide the next presidential election consider it acceptable. If it is not accurate, the evidence to disprove it would be ICE’s own data showing otherwise.

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