Immigrant Support Networks Step Up as ICE Enforcement Rises and Fear Grips Communities

In 2025, the volume of calls to the emergency hotline at Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN) more than doubled. The hotline received over 12,000 calls in a year, up from nearly 5,000 the year before. In the first week after Donald Trump’s inauguration, more than 600 calls came in. Brenda Rodríguez López, executive director of WAISN, said some callers want legal advice or to report a sighting of immigration enforcement. Others are unsure what they need.

Donald Trump’s second presidential term has been marked by sudden detentions, unexpected raids, and innumerable disruptions to everyday life. One of the first such incidents was in March 2025. Mahmoud Khalil—a graduate student at Columbia University and the lead negotiator for pro-Palestine protests on campus—was picked up from his residency in New York City, arrested, and detained for over three months. Shortly after Khalil’s arrest, a Tufts University graduate student, Rumeysa Öztürk, was detained by masked individuals, reportedly for writing an op-ed in her school newspaper against the bombing of Gaza. Then, there were ICE raids in several cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis.

At the heart of the issue lies a basic question with often complex answers: What are my rights?

In the shadow of these events, immigrants must face decisions that should be routine but no longer feel that way: whether to go to work, whether to attend a court hearing, whether to send children to school. Streets, grocery stores, courthouses, and even churches have become unsafe.

Nonprofits working with immigrant communities have encountered this growing fear, managing uncertainty, verifying information, and trying to prevent panic from becoming paralysis in vulnerable communities.

For many, at the heart of the issue lies a basic question with often complex answers: What are my rights?

Anticipation and Response

Anti-immigrant rhetoric was prevalent throughout Trump’s most recent presidential campaign; solidarity networks and nonprofit organizations logically anticipated a new wave of anti-immigrant action in the second Trump term.

“We were preparing our rapid response kit as soon as the election was happening,” said Jeff Jones, communications director at Legal Aid Justice Center in Virginia, noting that over the last year and a half the organization has seen regular traffic to their online rapid response toolkits.

WAISN was set up in 2016, during Trump’s first presidency. The network continued through the pandemic and provided support to communities during the Biden administration. López, a DACA recipient, understands the importance of immigration laws and community support. Community organizations like hers have long predicted the current expansion of anti-immigrant action.

“Under the first administration,” she said, “[Trump] was testing what was possible. Under this administration, he has come ready.”

Indeed, the second Trump administration has set an aggressive target to arrest 3,000 immigrants a day and increased ICE funding to $85 billion, making it the nation’s highest-funded law enforcement agency.

In January 2024, the network received about 800 calls during the month; by January 2025, it received 800 calls in a single day.

In his first term, Trump’s deportation totals of about one million remained below Obama’s 3.1 million in eight years, with annual removals peaking at over 400,000 in 2012. In the first year of Trump’s second term the Department of Homeland Security reported nearly 700,000 deportations, including many instances in which immigrants with no conviction or charge were arrested.

In Washington state, López explained, WAISN’s approach is built around four pillars: a hotline, rapid response teams, accompaniment programs, and a bond fund. The hotline is the entry point. From there, rapid response teams of volunteers spread across counties are mobilized to verify sightings and document activity. Volunteers accompany individuals for their immigration hearings and appointments, offering both practical support and a form of visibility in spaces where arrests have been increasing. When detention does happen, the bond fund becomes critical.

Angela Ciolfi, executive director at Legal Aid Justice Center, explained that she is witnessing cases where people with no criminal history are detained during lawful, routine activities, such as paying child support at a courthouse. People who are fully compliant with the requirements of their cases are being detained, despite adhering to regular check-ins and posing no flight risk. She added that federal agencies are routinely violating judicial orders to release immigrants, forcing detainees to litigate in federal court to secure their freedom.

“People have shifted from fear mode to survival mode,” Ciolfi explained, and are preparing for the worst-case scenario. She noted that many families are seeking “standby guardianship” and making “financial arrangements with any property or bank accounts that they own.”

Building a System to Respond

The North Bay Rapid Response Network, which serves California’s Napa, Solano, and Sonoma Counties, runs 24-hour hotlines, trains legal observers, verifies ICE enforcement, and conducts door-to-door outreach with rights kits to inform and mobilize communities.

They have seen “an increase in demand for Know Your Rights training,” said volunteer organizer Luis Zaragoza. In January 2024, the network received about 800 calls during the month. By January 2025, it received 800 calls in a single day.

“A lot of the time people will call [to report an ICE sighting]…and it turns out to be local law enforcement,” Zaragoza said. This trend points to the increased fear and vigilance many communities are feeling, causing people to jump to conclusions that any uniformed officer might be an ICE agent. In some places, however, those conclusions may be well-founded.

For many organizations, the demand is outpacing capacity. They need more hotline staff, legal aid, and funding to support families losing breadwinners.

In Virginia, Legal Aid Justice Center conducted an investigation to identify which local law enforcement agencies in the state have contracts with federal immigration authorities. Over eight months, they filed public records requests to identify agreements that allow local law enforcement to act as immigration agents or use jails to house detainees. They recently published their report, Unmasking ICE’s Collusion with Law Enforcement in Virginia.

“The public response was significant through our communication channels, social media, and other outreach,” Jones said, citing the fact that the report was referenced regularly in news articles covering ICE contracts. “We’re talking about tens of thousands of interactions. That’s exactly what we wanted it to be: a resource showing what’s happening and how it works.”

Still, the number one request from the community has been “legal advice and representation,” Ciolfi noted. “People are forced to represent themselves…and immigration law can be confusing.” Immigrant communities are looking for “clarity and reassurance” in an environment where “the rules are changing daily.”

“We went from doing immigrants’…bond hearings, which were relatively routine…to suddenly having to train all of our attorneys on federal court habeas proceedings, which are much more complicated, longer in duration, and take much more, many more resources,” Ciolfi said. Witnessing the government’s disregard for judicial rulings, has been, in her words, “demoralizing.”

Holding the Line

Organizers and volunteers are mostly local, taking action to protect and support their own communities. In Sonoma, Zaragoza said, volunteers—ranging in age from their 20s to their 80s—take calls, respond as legal observers, and accompany people to court.

For many organizations, the demand is outpacing capacity. They need more hotline staff, legal aid, and funding to support families losing breadwinners. There is rising demand from communities for Know Your Rights training, mental health support, and rapid response teams, as volunteers face burnout and communities seek both legal and emotional assistance.

“Our staff are saying no dozens of times a day,” Ciolfi said. “When you have the expertise to help someone but still have to say no…it is absolutely gut-wrenching.”

Ciolfi explained the organization’s immediate need: “To both fund direct immigration legal services, but also to fund impact advocacy.”

“It is impossible for organizations to write grant proposals with specific deliverables and goals because those goals are shifting constantly,” she argued. Instead, she said, funders must provide general operating support to enable rapid response.

“[WAISN] is an organization that’s impact-led,” López said. “I don’t get to clock out…I’m an immigrant every day. We’re not here to run like a fast-food restaurant….We’re going to take our time, build relationships, and do this with intentionality.”

With increased cases of detention—and, in early 2026, the ICE killings of Minneapolis residents Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti—protests are growing against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

People are occupying streets and volunteering in solidarity networks. Yet these organizations need more. While the intensity of immigration enforcement today is driving much of this crisis, communities will also need resources to rebuild if and when that intensity subsides. Organizations will need support for years to come to build trust and provide necessary long-term legal services.

What will persist beyond this moment, as Zaragoza stressed, is the “lesson of resilience…how we came together and formed a community.”