Americans are witnessing immigration arrests firsthand. Many say they can't just watch
Barefoot and armed with only his iPhone, poet and podcast producer Adam Greenfield raced out of his San Diego home after his girlfriend alerted him to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicles pulling up in their neighbourhood.
Nursing a cold, Mr Greenfield joined a handful of neighbours recording masked agents raiding a popular Italian restaurant nearby, as they collectively yelled at officers to leave.
Within an hour, the impromptu gathering swelled to nearly 75 people, many positioning themselves in front of the agents' vehicles. "I couldn't stay silent," Mr Greenfield said. "It was literally outside of my front door."
The incident reflects a growing trend across the United States, where more citizens are witnessing immigration arrests unfold in public spaces – from shops and gyms to restaurants – as President Donald Trump's administration aggressively works to increase such detentions.
This heightened visibility is prompting many Americans, including those who rarely engage in civil disobedience, to spontaneously record events on their phones and launch protests in response.
Greenfield said on the evening of the May 30 raid, the crowd included grandparents, retired military members, hippies, and restaurant patrons arriving for date night. Authorities threw flash bangs to force the crowd back and then drove off with four detained workers, he said.
'To do this, at 5 o'clock, right at the dinner rush, right on a busy intersection with multiple restaurants, they were trying to make a statement,' Greenfield said. "But I don't know if their intended point is getting across the way they want it to. I think it is sparking more backlash.'
Previously many arrests happened late at night or in the pre-dawn hours by agents waiting outside people's homes as they left for work or outside their work sites when they finished their day. When ICE raided another popular restaurant in San Diego in 2008, agents did it in the early morning without incident.
White House border czar Tom Homan has said agents are being forced to do more arrests in communities because of sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with ICE in certain cities and states. ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide but seeks state and local help in alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding that person until federal officers take custody.
Vice President JD Vance during a visit to Los Angeles on Friday said those policies have given agents 'a bit of a morale problem because they've had the local government in this community tell them that they're not allowed to do their job."
'When that Border Patrol agent goes out to do their job, they said within 15 minutes they have protesters, sometimes violent protesters who are in their face obstructing them,' he said.
Melyssa Rivas had just arrived at her office in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, California one morning last week when she heard the frightened screams of young women. She went outside to find the women confronting nearly a dozen masked federal agents who had surrounded a man kneeling on the pavement.
'It was like a scene out of a movie,' Rivas said. 'They all had their faces covered and were standing over this man who was clearly traumatized. And there are these young girls screaming at the top of their lungs.'
As Rivas began recording the interaction, a growing group of neighbors shouted at the agents to leave the man alone. They eventually drove off in vehicles, without detaining him, video shows.
Rivas spoke to the man afterward, who told her the agents had arrived at the car wash where he worked that morning, then pursued him as he fled on his bicycle. It was one of several recent workplace raids in the majority-Latino city.
The same day, federal agents were seen at a Home Depot, a construction site and an LA Fitness gym. It wasn't immediately clear how many people had been detained.
'Everyone is just rattled,' said Alex Frayde, an employee at LA Fitness who said he saw the agents outside the gym and stood at the entrance, ready to turn them away as another employee warned customers about the sighting. In the end, the agents never came in.
Arrests at immigration courts and other ICE buildings have also prompted emotional scenes as masked agents have turned up to detain people going to routine appointments and hearings.
In the city of Spokane in rural eastern Washington state, hundreds of people rushed to protest outside an ICE building June 11 after former city councilor Ben Stuckart posted on Facebook. Stuckart wrote that he was a legal guardian of a Venezuelan asylum seeker who who went to check in at the ICE building only to be detained. His Venezuelan roommate was also detained.
Both men had permission to live and work in the U.S. temporarily under humanitarian parole, Stuckart told The Associated Press.
'I am going to sit in front of the bus,' Stuckart wrote, referring to the van that was set to transport the two men to an ICE detention center in Tacoma. 'The Latino community needs the rest of our community now. Not tonight, not Saturday but right now!!!!'
The city of roughly 230,000 is the seat of Spokane County, where just over half of voters cast ballots for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
Stuckart was touched to see his mother's caregiver among the demonstrators.
'She was just like, 'I'm here because I love your mom, and I love you, and if you or your friends need help, then I want to help,'' he said through tears.
By evening, the Spokane Police Department sent over 180 officers, with some using pepper balls, to disperse protesters. Over 30 people were arrested, including Stuckart who blocked the transport van with others. He was later released.
Aysha Mercer, a stay-at-home mother of three, said she is 'not political in any way, shape or form." But many children in her Spokane neighborhood -- who play in her yard and jump on her trampoline -- come from immigrant families, and the thought of them being affected by deportations was 'unacceptable," she said.
She said she wasn't able to go to Stuckart's protest. But she marched for the first time in her life on June 14, joining millions in 'No Kings' protests across the country.
'I don't think I've ever felt as strongly as I do right this here second,' she said.
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