As a way to pressure President Joe Biden to show love to immigrants this Valentine's Day, Carlos Eduardo Espina organized the nationwide movement, a “Day Without Immigrants”.
The 23-year-old Tik-Tok star earned over 2.5 million followers through Spanish-language videos about immigration. Thousands on social media said they plan on participating in the protest on Feb.14, when immigrants will not show up to work, school, or spend money.
“Let's make a dent to the government and big corporations where it hurts the most, their pockets. It is time for immigration reform,” Espina said in a post.
At the age of five, Espina came to the U.S. from Uruguay. Over the pandemic, he began offering citizenship classes on TikTok and gained traction in his following.
In his posts, Espina said he supported President Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign when he promised: “to work with Congress to create a road map to citizenship for the nearly 11 million people who have been living in our country and strengthening it for years”. Unaccomplished promises by the presidency lead Espina to withdraw his support.
The latest figures from the U.S. Census show about 14 percent of the population was born in another county. According to the information provided in, Just The FACTS, by March 2021, there were more than 11 million immigrants just in California. Only half of these are naturalized American citizens, with the other 25 percent having some sort of legal status, while the is undocumented.
Espina spoke to the Los Angeles Times about plans set for the nationwide movement.
“Our goal is to be realistic. We know we can't change the world in one day but what we are trying to do is create a movement,” Espina said. “We want to incentivize people to start getting involved politically, change their habits, think about who they give money to, who they support, really change the culture and make a unified effort to change immigration reform.”
