Policing ICE: Activists seek out federal agents, warn about immigration raids

A small group of activists assembled before dawn on a recent day in a South L.A. parking lot preparing to patrol the neighborhood. The gathering was not unlike what you see when police congregate in a parking lot preparing for a raid.

Only this time, the target was federal immigration agents.

The activists were from the Community Self Defense Coalition, which fights for immigrant rights. They were armed with two-way radios, bullhorns, and were trained to spot undercover vehicles from U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Department of Homeland Security.

The coalition formed in the wake of the second election of President Donald Trump and includes groups from across Los Angeles. They say their aim is to find ICE agents, alert the community to their presence using bullhorns, and drive them out of neighborhoods.

“They’re on our land. This is our territory,” said Ron Gochez of Unión del Barrio, which is part of the coalition. “Whatever they do here, they have to know they are going to meet an organized resistance.

“There is nowhere, there is no alleyway, no little corner of our city anywhere where an ICE raid can happen where we won’t know about it almost immediately,” he said.

An ICE spokesperson confirmed in a statement that agents have aborted at least one enforcement action “due to safety concerns brought on by protesters/bystanders.” The spokesperson declined to give his name “due to a heightened security risk to ICE employees.”

“Those who wish to engage in First Amendment protected, peaceful protests are free to do so, but hurling insults or threats at our officers and agents, who are merely enforcing the laws of the United States, is counterproductive,” the spokesperson said in the statement.

Tracking ICE

Last week, a high school history teacher, an ethnic studies instructor and a youth program leader were among the activists in South L.A. Nine people in three cars rolled into the darkened streets looking for ICE agents.

“We drive the streets of our neighborhood looking for anything suspicious,” said Gochez, a 43-year-old father and high school history teacher. "We start early in the morning because we know this is when ICE starts their operations.”

Gochez is a member of Unión del Barrio, one of the members of the coalition.

Unión del Barrio started the patrols in 2020 during a Biden Administration crackdown on unauthorized immigrants. The organization restarted the patrols over the past few weeks in response to the second Trump Administration.

Ron Gochez of Unión del Barrio

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Courtesy Ron Gochez

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On Wednesday, Gochez’s two-way radio crackled with the sound of a colleague checking in from another car on patrol.

“Copy. We are on Jefferson and Trinity. All clear,” she announced.

They looked for ICE vehicles – typically with heavily tinted windows, usually on an American made sedan or SUV, almost always with a cage in the back seat for detainees. Sometimes, the cars are parked sideways on a street in front of their target or grouped together in a grocery store parking lot.

Gochez said he and the other activists try to catch ICE agents in those lots as they gather before a raid.

“We try to catch them at that stage — that way we’re able to affect their plan and at the same time, we start alerting the community.”

When they find federal agents, they go into publicity mode.

“We go live on social media,” Gochez said. “We use our megaphone to alert the immediate community that ICE is present.”

In a recent Facebook Live post, Gochez can be seen speaking into a bullhorn across the street from where ICE agents appear to be conducting a raid.

“Everybody in this community, if you can hear me please do not come outside if you are undocumented,” he says on the video. “We have terrorists in our community.”

He implores people who are documented to come outside and support the protest.

Enforcing law vs defending community

Later, L.A. police officers confronted Gochez.

“We’re not interfering,” he told them.

“Yes you are,” responded an LAPD officer, who forced Gochez and the other protestors down the street.

The participation of city police officers appeared to violate L.A.’s sanctuary cities law, which prohibits police from cooperating or assisting ICE agents.

After the incident, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell issued a statement, saying the officers were “assisting with traffic control as Homeland Security was attempting to arrest a suspect wanted for human trafficking.”

The Trump administration has said it is prioritizing deportations of people convicted of crimes, but also said it seeks to remove anyone who is in the country without papers. This means unauthorized immigrants can get caught up in operations aimed at people who have committed crimes.

One of the people who joined Gochez on patrol Lupe Carrasco Cardona said she’s particularly concerned about so-called collateral damage.

“Absolutely there is a distinction,” said Cardona. “We are not doing this for criminals.”

Cardona, who teaches ethnic studies at Roybal Learning Center in downtown L.A., participated in an operation last month that came upon ICE agents who had gathered in a Target parking lot in Alhambra.

“We made noise, we put them on alert that we were alerting the neighborhood,” she said.

“It was a little bit daunting, but of course we’re together and we know we’re not going to make contact. We’re not going to obstruct.”

In an interview, Gochez agreed.

“We are not trying to be arrested. We are not trying to be martyrs. We’re just trying to defend our community,” he said. “My mom, she always warns me to be careful.”

ICE backs off

As part of the coalition, Unión del Barrio has trained people from more than 50 other organizations to engage in similar patrols, including The National Lawyers Guild, Jewish Voice for Peace and The Peoples Struggle San Fernando Valley, according to Gochez.

It's unclear how many conduct regular patrols like Unión del Barrio does.

Gochez estimates his and other groups have intercepted ICE on about a dozen occasions. He said in some cases, ICE has backed off of a raid because of Unión del Barrio’s presence.

Cardona said ICE agents called off the raid when they were called out at the Target. “That one day, we knew we prevented several people from being detained and deported, their lives being uprooted.”

The ICE spokesperson said the agency respects the coalition’s free speech rights.

“Our officers and agents are trained professionals who attempt to de-escalate tense situations and avoid violent confrontations while also performing our immigration enforcement mission consistent with federal law and agency policy,” the spokesperson said.

Union del Barrio urges people to use a text thread or to have some sort of a phone tree to alert each other about the presence of ICE in their neighborhoods. The group also has a hotline people can call if they spot ICE.

“We get calls from Uber drivers. We get calls from street vendors. We get calls from business owners and just everyday normal people who support the work that we do,” said Gochez, who refers to ICE detentions and arrests as the “kidnappings.”

“It is a kidnapping – no different from when they kidnapped Native Americans during the Indian Removal Act,” Gochez declared.

He said many of the calls to the coalition are false alarms, involving local agencies, like LAPD or the county Sheriff’s Department, conducting their own undercover operations. But the coalition is focused on the actions of federal immigration agents.

“There’s a lot of fear in the community,” Cardona said.

Gochez conceded that finding ICE agents before they carry out an enforcement operation or raid is a little bit like “looking for a needle in a haystack.”

More mainstream immigrant rights groups, like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, or CHIRLA, say they support the effort.

“We actually applaud any effort that keeps our community united in defense of families who are working and contributing positively to our community,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera .

CHIRLA also leads a Rapid Response Network of organizations that has a hotline. Lawyers and activists with the group also respond to reports of ICE raids.

A new tactic

Experts said the tactic of patrolling for ICE is relatively new.

Mirian Martinez-Aranda, an associate professor of sociology at U.C. Irvine, said it let’s members of immigrant communities know they are not alone.

“It's a new form in which immigrant communities and their supporters are finding a way to protect each other and to stand up for what's unfair and cruel,” Martinez-Aranda told LAist.

As he patrolled the streets of South L.A. looking for ICE, Gochez said there’s been very little activity in the past two weeks “and that’s exactly how we want it.”

But, he said, he’s unsure how long that will last.