Photo credit: REUTERS/via SNO Sites/Jonathan Drake

People protest as federal authorities conduct raids in Charlotte, expanding their crackdown on illegal immigration, in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S. November 16, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

Editor’s Note: *The name Maria Gomez is a pseudonym the source requested for fear of detention. The interview with Gomez was conducted in Spanish and translated by her daughter.

On what was expected to be a day of joy and celebration at her middle school graduation, ninth grader Amy Paz Rojas said she instead experienced the fear of an immigration raid at a nearby apparel store. On June 6, Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a raid on Ambiance Apparel in Downtown Los Angeles, where over 40 people were detained.

The raid came at a time when major cities in the U.S. were being targeted by ICE agents, following President Trump’s orders at the beginning of this year to begin raids on communities with large populations of immigrants lacking proper documentation. Since the initial raid in Los Angeles in June, cities such as Chicago, Portland and, most recently, Somali communities in Minnesota have been targeted by ICE.

Paz Rojas’s middle school was located so close to the raids that school administration announced the presence of federal agents and prepared for a lockdown. Her middle school served primarily Latine students, many of whom had parents lacking legal documentation, causing families to scramble to find places to house their children in case of detainment.

“There was just a bunch of screaming, and there was a lot of people saying, ‘What if I don’t come back? What if [ICE] gets me?'” Paz Rojas said. “It was a bunch of what-ifs.”

When leaving her school, Paz Rojas had to walk past federal agents to get to her family’s car. She said she was very afraid of looking at the agents and looked to her parents’ relaxed demeanor to remain calm. As they walked, groups of people began recording the agents and yelling to those being detained to call their lawyers.

“It was very scary, and it was frustrating knowing that I couldn’t really do anything to help these people,” Paz Rojas said. “I couldn’t save anyone.”

The mass raids in Los Angeles have been primarily conducted in neighborhoods with larger Latine populations, where a recent Supreme Court ruling allowed ICE agents to detain people for speaking Spanish and appearing Latine. This decision has resulted in “ghost towns” in primarily Latine neighborhoods, where individuals are not leaving their homes due to fear of detainment. Maria Gomez immigrated from Mexico to the United States 29 years ago and said the recent raids have caused her to stay home and rely on neighbors who are citizens for household needs.

“You can’t even go to the grocery store without being scared that [ICE is] going to come there and pick you up and take you back,” Gomez said. “[My neighbor’s] wife, would take [my daughter] to the grocery store because the grocery store was not safe to go to.”

Under the current Trump administration, ICE has detained individuals for over 48 hours without charge, which is against ICE’s own policy. The extended detainment has made the deportation process confusing for many immigrants lacking proper documentation.

“It’s very unjust and very scary because there is no protection for people that look Hispanic — [you can be detained] — just because of your appearance. The rules are very unfair,” Gomez said. “You don’t have anything that’s protecting you — the law — or something that at least gives you some security that you might come back one day.”

Through this time of heightened discussion surrounding immigration policies, sophomore Sarah Mzoughi found community through a Girls Learn International summer program to help advocate for immigrant women. She and other program attendees created an Instagram account to help spread information about the treatment of women and children in ICE detainment centers.

“I hadn’t seen so much coverage of the specific issues that target women and minorities in the already targeted minority groups [being detained],” Mzoughi said. “We tried to use our wits and use our resources right to spread the word because it was a topic that we didn’t really see covered in the media all too often.”

Some positive changes have come from the recent raids though, such as an increase in awareness and conversation about immigration policies said Mzoughi. She has seen new spaces emerge for people to protest the treatment of those detained by ICE.

“I think that’s what we really saw with the No Kings protest. We saw a lot of people standing up, and we saw a lot of people protesting outside of the ICE detainment centers,” Mzoughi said. “It’s both beautiful seeing everyone stand up, but then it’s also scary as to why everyone has to stand up.”