One March afternoon, the hotline received a call about a group of officers wearing plainclothes and masks removing a young woman wearing a headscarf.
“Someone is being abducted!” the caller exclaimed to the operator, Danny Timpona. For such an occasion, his organization, the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, had been prepared.
In a matter of minutes, Mr. Timpona dispatched volunteers to Somerville, a suburb northwest of Boston, to confirm the allegation. They started knocking on doors when they got to deserted streets, hoping to find someone who could assist them put together what had happened. A home security camera’s footage was provided by a neighbor.
Agents from the Department of Homeland Security were seen in the video, which has already received millions of views, encircling Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national, who was detained for the next six weeks. It provided the country with one of the first glimpses of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Across the nation, a growing number of grassroots immigrant rights organizations, such as Mr. Timpona’s, are attempting to stop President Trump’s plan for mass deportations. Their goal is to swiftly confirm if immigration officials are present. They record concerns that could otherwise be overlooked. Additionally, they disseminated information about those being detained on social media.
These organizations have recently gained the most attention in Los Angeles, where activists quickly reacted to an immigration raid at a clothes wholesaler by confronting federal authorities. Protests lasted for days.
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