De-ICEing your town

Across the country, neighbors are getting dragged away by ICE. Whole communities live in fear of going to work, the grocery store, or church. Those who are detained are often mistreated and sent to abusive detention facilities at in the U.S. and abroad without due process.

Normally, I include some history of authoritarianism in these Tuesday posts, even when looking at current events. But so many people have written to me to say they feel helpless and to ask how they can keep ICE out of their town, I want to focus on that today.

In the past, I’ve included links or suggestions about ways to take action on immigration. But I think people are still having trouble getting started or feeling like they know exactly what to do.

The first thing to understand is that you don’t have to have the whole landscape sketched out before you get going. It’s fine to start small and learn as you go. But it can help if you hear directly from people in the field, who are out there every day working for justice for immigrants and know the lay of the land.

One quick item to note is that it’s always a good idea to let your member of Congress and your Senators know how important this issue is to you. But today, I’m going to mostly focus on the local approach and share parts of a conversation I had last week with Oliver Merino, who is with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

I asked Oliver to walk me through what he’s currently working on, what his group’s goals are, and how people might be able to make use of similar approaches in their own communities. He began by explaining a little what’s happening right now. (His answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.)

There was an article recently from The New York Times that described the increase of immigration enforcement in Virginia, I think it was over 300% compared to 2024. In these last few months of 2025, more than 3,000 people have been arrested by ICE in the state. And obviously for many, many of us, we've seen the footage and, really just disregard for people's rights when it comes to ICE detaining them and abducting them.

For many of us that have been in the movement for some time, we know the abuses that happen when ICE is in the streets arresting people, the abuses that happen in detention centers, the inhumane treatment that happens in these facilities and the lack of due process that people have when they go against an immigration judge or an administration, regardless of who is in the administration. We've seen that happen over and over again.

If you talk to friends or relatives who may be more sympathetic to ICE, sometimes they’ll say about local law enforcement, “Well, they have to do this. They're required by law to do these things. Are you saying they should just break the law?” That’s one of the issues I wanted to address with Oliver, because in many cases that's just not true.

That's right. There's certain things that they are required to do when someone is booked into the jail, asking them whether they're a citizen or not, fingerprinting them, sharing those fingerprints with federal agencies — those type of things they have to do by law.

They cannot break [with] those things. But there's certain actions that the sheriff is taking, law enforcement agencies across the country are taking, to facilitate arrests and to facilitate deportations.

Oliver explained that for many but not all U.S. citizens, if someone is booked into a jail, they get charged, and—whether it’s a misdemeanor or a felony—they might be released, or pay bail or a fine and agree to come to a court date at a later time, or serve a sentence. But that’s not the case for everybody.

For many immigrants, often there's a double punishment of detention and deportation. What the sheriff is doing here in Alexandria, Virginia, is he's calling ICE to let them know to pick up someone from jail when they are released. He is holding people past their release time, in order for ICE to come and pick them up. And he's honoring ICE warrants and detainers.

The difference between judicial warrants and ICE warrants or detainers is that the ICE warrant is basically just a formal request for assistance, whereas a judge's warrant has legal obligations attached to it. Honoring ICE warrants and detainers is not mandatory.

All of these actions that the sheriff is taking, all these are voluntary, meaning that he's going beyond what is required by law to collaborate with ICE. 

You know, one of the things to understand about mass deportation is it requires local collaboration. Folks may remember the budget reconciliation recently that was discussed in Congress and was passed, this proposal from President Trump to give more money to ICE and more money for detention.

I think we are about to see the dramatic increase of detention and arrest of immigrants in this country, unless local communities step up and say, "We don't want to be part of this." 

And that's what we are doing here in Alexandria. I think the community did not elect the sheriff to serve as an immigration agent. He has mentioned publicly that he does not do immigration enforcement, which is, in our view, a very inaccurate way of describing what he is doing. I think the people that elected him should know the collaboration that he's having with ICE. That's why we're having this campaign to demand that he ends all voluntary collaboration with ICE.

I asked Oliver to lay out exactly what his organization and the community are doing to end this kind of collaboration. He noted that before he even got involved with the current effort to push back against ICE’s agenda in Alexandria, the community had already successfully pressured the local sheriff’s department to end its formal partnership, and also to make other concessions. Local activists met with the sheriff and city council staff, too. Oliver’s current work is a continuation of those ongoing efforts.

We have met already with community members. We have had conversations with the sheriff himself before, earlier this year, where we asked them directly to end this collaboration and why for the community it's important that local law enforcement is not an arm of of ICE. He did not agree. He did not commit to doing that. He heard us out, but there was no intention of ending that collaboration. 

And so for us, one, we want to inform the public about what's happening for many people in Alexandria. We recently participated in a local march to commemorate the legacy of representative John Lewis. We had an opportunity to talk to community members. Many of them who were there — they know him personally and they've supported him in the past — about this collaboration that he has with ICE. And for many of them, this was new. This was surprising that it was happening in Alexandria, in a city like Alexandra, that I think has been welcoming to immigrants for the most part.

There's still some challenges of course, but, first is an education phase right now to let people know what is the actual collaboration that is happening with the sheriff and ICE. We are going to be having a series of, community meetings, inviting people to learn more, but also ask questions.

And we'll be engaging some people in local government, to see where they're at, what their take is on this. Even though it's not up to them solely to end this practice, I think, as representatives of the community, they should have an opinion on what's happening and should use their positions of power to speak out against it.

Ultimately, it's the sheriff who has who has the power to end it. And we're just informing the community of what they can do to ask questions of him directly. As a whole, I think if people were put that question, “Do you want your sheriff to be an ICE agent in Alexandria?” I think most people would say no.

Oliver mentioned that one key way ICE collaborates with local law enforcement is through a program known as 287(g), which expands the role of local law enforcement in carrying out ICE’s agenda. He said that program had previously been in place in Alexandria before local efforts successfully pushed to end it. ICE would no longer be permitted to use the local jail to detain people directly, and the sheriff agreed to decrease the number of hours he would hold anyone on their behalf.

But that didn’t end the collaboration entirely, so they’re working to shut down the ways they see their sheriff now unofficially collaborating. In the meantime, Oliver explained, in other parts of the country, the momentum is in the other direction. Formal partnerships have been expanding.

There's been an increase in this program across the country in states like, Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, where states are mandating, local law enforcement to participate.

There was an announcement by, the governor in Virginia — I think we are still yet to see like how that will play out — but essentially encouraging local law enforcement to participate in the program. As piece together what's been happening, we are [seeing] in this new administration, or the second part of this administration, an increase of ICE activity across the country.

Here in Virginia, there’s talk of creating ICE detention facilities by reopening shuttered prisons. And the new federal budget funding will exponentially expand the resources ICE has available nationwide.

I think sometimes it can be overwhelming to think, "I'm fighting against the state government, law enforcement agencies, the federal government."

In the administration that does not care for people's constitutional rights, locally, there's a lot people can do. There are several groups in Virginia who are fighting against the detention expansion, that have been fighting to shut down the detention centers that are currently in Virginia.

One of the great things that I think we've seen is community members stepping up and joining ICE Watch. Figuring out how to do it in places where there's not a local group, people have created their own — if there's any sighting of ICE, creating their own chats or hotlines where somebody can report an ICE sighting. It’s all volunteer-based. They can go and see if that's true.

In this moment where there's a lot of concern and fear, people, maybe not maliciously, but they report an ICE sighting where it's not necessarily happening. And it's important for someone in the community that is a U.S. citizen that has a more of a secure immigration status to go and check it out.

That's one thing. Also, we've seen, volunteers joining someone that is going to an immigration court. So either sharing, "know your rights" information for people that are going there, or even just sometimes just bearing witness about some of these arrests that are happening and letting people know that this is happening in your own city, in your own state.

Oftentimes, I think ICE does not want this footage to be public, does not want people to know that these arrests are happening. They want the numbers they want to show. But there's a reason why they're wearing masks. That's a reason why oftentimes these raids are happening early morning or late at night, in secrecy. Having community members documenting what's happening, it's important.

Another thing Oliver mentioned is that we often underestimate the power or pressure we can exert at the local level. If there's any type of collaboration between law enforcement in your city and your sheriff or your city council, you might see these people around at the grocery store or the farmer's market. You may have more of a direct and immediate influence on them than you would on your member of Congress or your Senators.

If you’re fortunate enough to have no collaboration at the local level, in your local community, your can still organize to invest in providing legal representation for immigrants. With detention expanding, so many people will be going before an immigration judge without a lawyer.

Meanwhile, having a lawyer improves your chances for a fairer outcome or for staying with your family and in your community. The organization where Oliver works, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, has worked with communities to push for that.

You can also reach out to others who are already doing this work. And if you don’t know what role your local law enforcement plays when it come to ICE, they might be able to shed some light on the current situation for you.

It was helpful for us, I would say for me as well, to connect with local groups. Many of them have been doing this work for a while. And so in, in Alexandria, we were able to connect with folks who have had conversations with the sheriff in the past, not just the current sheriff, but previous sheriffs as well.

So that's one way, like figuring out what groups in, in your city, are already doing some of this type of work. And sometimes I would say, as an organizer, sometimes it's kind of showing up. It's like 60% of the thing, being present and going to meetings, not just going to protests.

If you’re just getting started trying to figure out what’s happening close to home, Oliver said that the government makes 287(g) agreements public. His group has a map that tracks formal agreements with ICE.

There are other organizations at the national level with a lot of resources that can help people understand what’s happening now with immigrant detention and how it will likely be expanding. One group Oliver mentioned partnering with is Detention Watch Network, but he also noted that there are a lot of resources out there.

You don't have to start from scratch if there's already a group there. Some national resources are available as well. 

Second, you can always at least get some official response from your city council: “I'm concerned about this. What are you doing to protect my immigrant neighbors?”

Oftentimes, although maybe now it's less common, your member of Congress would have a town hall. And, I've done that before. I've gone to my representative’s town hall. Not that you would hear the answer that you want.

I remember just asking what was their plan — this was in January —  what was their plan to protect immigrant communities in Alexandria, knowing what was coming. 

I think keeping track of like what is the voting record of your representatives is important. I found that even people that we think are on our side could take their own votes and could say the wrong thing. And it's important for them to hear from you as a constituent, kind of like, “I don't agree with this. This is important to me.”

Oliver and I talked about how demonstrations are a good first step and a way to find people who care about the same issues. We also talked about ways to reach out to people who are already being harmed and offer them material support. You can look up local mutual aid groups and food banks to see what the needs are, or check with leaders at local Catholic churches that have Spanish masses. But beyond that…

A lot of it is showing up. And showing up consistently, like whenever there's a demonstration. I think that is important, and that should happen. But also, going to planning meetings with local groups when they have an event where it's more learning about what's happening, joining them, and volunteering locally to learn more and [give] support.

Before this administration even came in, the country already had significant failures in the arena of immigration. Immigrant abuse and immigration detention have been at a crisis point in the US for decades— with the roots of today’s punitive policies going back more than a century. Immigrant communities have been working for a long time to try to protect the vulnerable, but Americans who have secure immigration status are going to have to do more to resolve both the current short-term crisis and the long-term one. I asked Oliver what that might look like.

It's a tough question, but I would say, I've been organizing since, 2012, so, it's been some time now. And I've seen ups and downs, setbacks, losses as well. We don't always win. But throughout this time, I've seen when people plug in and they find community, and they understand the need to support their neighbor and be in solidarity with them, and that transformation that happens, that is very hopeful for me.

And I've seen that over and over again. And oftentimes those people stay plugged in, they stay like that, something kind of awakes within them. Whether they stay in the movement for many years or in the short term, that is something that they carry with them. 

It's a very tough time, a very dark time in this country. But I'm also encouraged and hopeful that a lot of people are taking action in whatever way that they can — whether that is going to a demonstration or plugging in locally, even just having these conversations with their friends. Sometimes it's supporting materially. All the pieces count. I think, all those things are important. 

There's not just one thing. And doing this work at the federal level can be very depressing just because of what's ahead. But I think locally is where I get a lot of my encouragement and a lot of my hope.

I really wish that people that are really taking action continue to do so, and people just finding out about what's happening, that they join a group. And if there's not one, get their neighbors and friends to create their own group. You don't need an organization to take action.

You can do that on your own. That's how I started. I saw how community members were being detained by ICE and deported. And I just ended up going to a demonstration and then I kept going to another one. And then I went to the meetings, and they said, “Who wants to volunteer for this?” Like, I'm not doing much. Let me do something. And now, more than a decade later, I’m still doing this and bringing more people along. That to me is encouraging.

Oliver was really generous for giving so much of his time to help explain all this. And I’d like to point out a couple things. First, there was a whole laundry list of things you can do in this post. I’ll run back through that list now.

You can find out if law enforcement in your community has a 287(g) partnership. If so, you can work to end it. If it it doesn’t, you can reach out to local aid groups or lawyers representing immigrants to find out whether law enforcement is collaborating even in the absence of a formal agreement. You can contact your local elected leaders and officials and let them know what’s happening and what effects it’s having, and pressure them to reduce ICE’s reach in your town.

You can demonstrate, you can attend local council meetings and work on the elections that determine which elected officials are representing you. You can let them know what matters to you. You can help immigrants under duress via mutual aid. You can volunteer as a court observer or use your time or money to help make sure immigrants who are detained get legal representation.

The second thing I’d like to point out is that Oliver shared a lot of information in a more organized way than you probably usually see, but there’s no magic secret knowledge he has that makes it possible for him but no one else to make a difference. He went to some public demonstrations and rallies, he started showing up for meetings, and he simply became more plugged in and more aware of what work needed to be done, connected with others who wanted to help, and began doing that work.

He has knowledge that most of us don’t because of the experience he has. But the main thing that distinguishes him is that he is doing the work. And we can be doing it, too. What are you waiting for?

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