“Resilient Communities”: How People Are Stepping Up to Protect Immigrant Neighbors From ICE

*Illustration by Michelle Perez for palabra*

From panic to power: undocumented communities are organizing against fear and for their rights.

Words by Victoria Valenzuela, @Victoriaevalenz. Illustration by Michelle Perez, @michiperezart. Edited by Patricia Guadalupe, @PatriciagDC.

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One day, Ivan Alamonte received a call from an undocumented woman in Durham, North Carolina, who was seeking his help. ICE agents had been patrolling the mobile home community where she lived, and through her window, she saw that there was an unmarked car parked right outside. Filled with fear, she turned to Alamonte for guidance.

Over the phone, Alamonte told the woman her rights: she didn’t have to open the door for ICE unless they had a judicial warrant, meaning one signed by a judge and not an ICE agent, as has happened in some cases. He sent a group of supporters to her home to confront the ICE agents. They knocked on the car door and asked why the agents were there.

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“After having that conversation, [the ICE agents] left,” Alamonte recalled.

As an organizer and founder of Respuesta Rápida de Durham (Rapid Response of Durham), a team that deals with community encounters with ICE in real time, Alamonte receives calls and Facebook messages requesting help every single day. At a time when the Trump administration is calling for the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, Alamonte, who has been doing this work since he came to the U.S. 27 years ago, said he is receiving more calls for help than ever.

“There are more requests, because I think people are more aware of the consequences or how changing policies are impacting them, and also people being afraid,” Alamonte tells palabra.

He recalled another time when a Venezuelan man was arrested outside a grocery store in Raleigh, North Carolina, one week after Trump’s inauguration, and the man’s wife, who was with him at the time of his arrest, reached out to Alamonte. He said people in the community trust him because he shows up to events, organizes fundraisers and mutual aid, and is bilingual.

‘We have to be vigilant, but also advocate and make sure everybody has a voice at the table.’

“I have a voice already in the community, and I have to make sure there is a space for others to speak up,” he said. “We have to be vigilant, but also advocate and make sure everybody has a voice at the table.”

Durham isn’t the only place with a “for the people, by the people” model — all around the country, people are taking a stand to defend and support their immigrant communities by forming grassroots coalitions and rapid response networks. While increased ICE threats and enforcement sweep the nation, local organizers are meeting the attacks head-on with active resistance. These efforts have included patrols to spot ICE, 24/7 hotlines, know your rights workshops, and providing resources to the community. While many of these efforts already existed, they have been ramping up under the second Trump administration.

“We're working to make sure that our community can adequately defend their rights against ethnic cleansing, kidnapping,s and human trafficking that ICE is doing and specifically targeting people in communities of color,” said Angélica, an organizer with the Community Self-Defense Coalition, who asked not to share her last name, a coalition of over 70 organizations in Los Angeles.

The Community Self-Defense Coalition has volunteers who patrol all over Los Angeles daily to spot ICE activity. If detected, they use social media to alert their communities to where the activity is and remind people of their rights. Sometimes they will also use megaphones to draw attention. They began organizing and training people on how to identify ICE in November, not long after the 2024 presidential election.

*Volunteers from the Community Self-Defense Coalition march with other groups during the May Day protest in downtown Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of Community Self-Defense Coalition*

“I think oftentimes when ICE knows that they're being watched, it's less likely that they will violate people's rights,” Angélica said.

She mentioned that she feels inspired to see people come together to protect their neighbors and that the work her group does is driven by love and the need to protect children and to ensure that families stay together. Angélica added that this type of grassroots work with people who have ties to the community is powerful, because they know their communities best: “We know which car belongs on our block and which one doesn't, we know who is there to cause harm.”

“What happens when communities aren't organized, people are being kidnapped, families are being torn apart,” Angélica added. “This is a never-ending horror that is happening today, these attacks are against people who are integral parts of our community. We need to make sure that we step up and protect our community.”

Similarly, an organizer with NYC ICE Watch who wanted to use the pseudonym “Tupac” to avoid monitoring, said the second Trump presidency is scaring people and that there's a genuine interest in people wanting to know what to do about ICE raids and about those who are detained.

He said that the group has more than doubled in size with their team and followers on social media. At one of their “Know Your Rights” trainings, they had to turn people away at the door. “Tupac” says they have volunteers all over New York City patrolling neighborhoods to spot ICE activity, who hear what the whispers are on the street, and we're able to correspond accordingly.”

*A sign used at NYC ICE Watch-organized marches to support migrant communities across New York City. Photo courtesy of NYC ICE Watch*

In addition to their patrols, NYC ICE Watch also gets tips about ICE sightings from its more than 21,000 followers on Instagram. The NYC ICE Watch group teaches people to report this activity with the SALUTE model — size, activity, location, uniform, time, and equipment to identify and verify that the officers are ICE agents. The group usually gets two to five tips a day, largely in the morning when ICE is most active. They have also helped when ICE comes knocking and provide resources.

“Fascism is not going to stop unless people stand up,” “Tupac” said. “No one else is going to do it, certainly no one else is going to do it the way you want to do it, unless you do it yourself. We keep us safe.”

“This is how you build resilient communities,” he added. “We don't look towards elected officials to protect us. We look to ourselves.”

While NYC ICE Watch has doubled, over on the West Coast, the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network in Seattle has trained 3,000 volunteers since January, more than double the 1,500 volunteers they had prior to the second Trump presidency. These volunteers work in 27 of the 39 counties in Washington, trained in rapid response to go where ICE activity is happening, document and interact with ICE agents without interfering with their operations, aiming to serve as witnesses for any violations to the constitutional rights and civil liberties of all people regardless of immigration status. This includes supporting recording conversations and asking for judicial warrants as required by the federal and state laws.

Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN) members and allies celebrate Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Day 2025 on the steps of the Washington state Capitol. Photo courtesy of Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN)

WAISIN executive director Brenda Rodríguez López said these volunteers are acting as ears on the ground, adding that some volunteers have done mutual aid work and gone grocery shopping for immigrants who are too afraid to leave their homes.

Earlier this year, Rodríguez López said that a woman called the 12-hour WAISIN hotline to report that ICE had been in her apartment complex. However, she told WAISIN hotline operators she knew from a WAISIN training that the ICE agents couldn’t enter private property without a warrant, which they didn’t have. For Rodríguez López, that is the importance of this work: know what their rights are and how to exercise them, know what to look for, and build trust.

“We can prepare ourselves, reclaim our agency and dignity, and also support each other through solidarity and community,” Rodríguez López said. “Immigrant justice community organizations across the country have stepped up to fill the resource gap and keep everyone, regardless of immigration status, informed of their rights.”

Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN) volunteers lead a "Know Your Rights" training session from the Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Day in January of this year. Photo courtesy of Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN)

Over in New Jersey, Movimiento Cosecha has a 24/7 hotline staffed with 10 volunteers to take calls reporting ICE activity or for callers seeking to know their rights in an instance of an active ICE encounter, in addition to “Know Your Rights” trainings, reporting on social media, and distributing cards with the hotline number.

“The idea here is basically to have a place available for people who might be walking on the street and see ICE, they can easily either send us a message through social media or call the hotline if they feel more comfortable talking to a person on the phone,” said Li Adorno, an organizer with Cosecha.

Adorno said volunteers will also go out to confront ICE and connect with the person being detained. He hopes the support will help people “to feel empowered to say that they don't have to answer questions, so that they don't have to talk to the ICE officials at that very moment, that they have the right to ask for an attorney.” In a state with one-party consent, where one does not need permission to record, he said the organization also encourages people to record ICE encounters for accountability.

“This whole system is put in place to make us feel like we're worth less and tries to implement this status of second-class citizen upon people who are here without documentation,” Adorno said. “We like to highlight that being here without documents is not a crime.”

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Victoria Valenzuela is an independent journalist in California covering immigration, prison reform, and Chicano activism. She has a Master’s in specialized journalism with a concentration in social justice and investigations from the University of Southern California. She has been published in the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, BuzzFeed News, The Intercept, Ms. Magazine, Bolts Magazine, and more. She previously worked with NAHJ as an intern and was a member of the student committee, and has also worked with The Marshall Project as an audience engagement intern, was an emerging reporter fellow with ProPublica, an uprising fellow with Just Media, and an inaugural fellow with the Law and Justice Journalism Project. @Victoriaevalenz

Michelle Perez is an illustrator and designer based in Providence, Rhode Island. Raised across coasts of the United States, she grounds herself in the stories she’s carried with her along the way. Her art seeks to elevate meaningful narratives through bold linework and thoughtful compositions, bridging traditional and digital means of making. @michiperezart

Patricia Guadalupe, raised in Puerto Rico, is a bilingual multimedia journalist based in Washington, D.C., and is the interim managing editor of palabra. She has been covering the capital for both English- and Spanish-language media outlets since the mid-1990s and previously worked as a reporter in New York City. She’s been an editor at Hispanic Link News Service, a reporter at WTOP Radio (CBS Washington affiliate), a contributing reporter for CBS Radio network, and has written for NBC News.com and Latino Magazine, among others. She is a graduate of Michigan State University and has a Master’s degree from the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University. She is the former president of the Washington, D.C., chapter of NAHJ and is an adjunct professor at American University in the nation’s capital and the Washington semester program of Florida International University. @PatriciagDC

Sharedpalabra.June 11, 2025