Opinion: How neighborhoods are fighting back against ICE

When my family was separated by U.S immigration policy in the late 1990s, we were overtaken by unimaginable grief and unrelenting pain. This experience grounds me as the organizing director at the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, working alongside others to build collective strength in the face of injustice. Lately, this pain has surged back, rekindled by the Trump administration’s cruel attacks on immigrant communities.

Politicians are pushing to end birthright citizenship and gut asylum protections. Due process, the cornerstone of justice, is cast aside. ICE storms workplaces and homes. It arrests parents outside courthouses, hospitals, even schools. Then there’s “Alligator Alcatraz,” an ICE detention center built in the Florida Everglades to dehumanize. Even the name carries the weight of lurking danger, a constant reminder that immigrants are being hunted.

I saw the reality of these vicious, inhumane policies and practices play out as I watched an interview of two Oceanside teenagers. At 6 a.m. on June 18, masked, heavily armed ICE agents shattered their windows, threw flashbangs into their home and pushed their way inside. The U.S.-born siblings were handcuffed. Both parents were arrested.

The trauma on the siblings’ faces was unmistakable. The 14-year-old daughter’s tears could have been mine. I felt her pain. It’s a pain that steals your voice and breaks your body.

Their neighbors recorded the raid and demanded that ICE unhandcuff the brother and sister. As word spread, the community rallied, providing support and raising funds for legal fees.

This care and coordination are happening every day throughout San Diego County — in Solana Beach, Escondido, Carlsbad, Vista, El Cajon, Barrio Logan and beyond. Neighborhood by neighborhood, communities are proving that even in the face of orchestrated terror, solidarity is stronger.

The ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties is working with our community partners to build an infrastructure that connects neighborhood networks. These connections help local leaders unite, coordinate strategies and multiply their power. We also share Know Your Rights resources and training, and support grassroots organizing as part of the broader efforts to assist as many families as possible.

These networks provide essential resources and services. They verify ICE actions, share information about rights, connect people with legal resources, organize mutual aid and advocate for protective policies. Because they are so deeply connected to their neighborhood, they serve as trusted messengers for immigrant communities who are unsure where to turn for reliable information.

Most of this work happens behind the scenes: text threads at dawn confirming ICE sightings; neighbors huddling to plan; the coordination that gets an extra box of groceries from Escondido to a family in Chula Vista. It’s solidarity in action.

This solidarity matters. In San Diego County, there are 56,000 children with at least one undocumented parent. Ensuring families’ well-being, safety and unity are central to this work. And doing so will require deep multi-generational, multiracial, intersectional solidarity.

I encourage you to join an existing network in your neighborhood by contacting community leaders and organizations involved in immigration work. If your neighborhood doesn’t have one, create it. Gather trusted people — neighbors, faith leaders, clinic staff — and start the conversation.

The separation of the Oceanside family is not an isolated incident. Two siblings, 5-year-old Eugenia and 11-year-old Bilver, watched ICE agents forcibly remove their father from his car as he was taking them to school. Six-year-old Camilla asked her dad why he didn’t come home for dinner when he called her from a detention center pay phone. And countless other instances of family separation don’t make the headlines.

The pain of family separation never leaves. But neither does the memory of those who show up when help is needed most. Today, I see this spirit of collective care in every person who refuses to look away. Solidarity isn’t a feeling — it’s an act, and it’s how we keep families and communities whole.

Hernández is organizing director at ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties and lives in San Diego.