ICE Is Targeting Latine Activists. But They Can’t Silence a Movement Born to Fight Back

At 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, March 25, Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino was driving his partner to work in Skagit County, Washington, when he was pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in plainclothes and an unmarked vehicle. Within moments, agents shattered the back driver’s-side window of Zeferino’s car. In an effort to de-escalate, he stepped out — only to be immediately handcuffed, placed in the agents' car, and driven to a border patrol holding station in Ferndale. Later that day, he was transferred to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, where he remains detained. Hundreds of people gathered in Tacoma later that week to protest his arrest.

Zeferino is a prominent organizer and co-founder of Familias Unidas por la Justicia, known for his decades of advocacy on behalf of farmworkers in Central Washington. His work has led to major labor reforms, including state-mandated heat protections for outdoor workers — who are now required to take regular water and cool-off breaks once temperatures reach 80 degrees — and the passage of a 2021 law guaranteeing overtime pay for farmworkers. Zeferino is also a volunteer organizer with Community to Community, a food justice organization. His supporters believe his arrest is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to crack down on activists and organizers critical of its immigration and labor policies.

“He’s been a really outspoken member of our community and an important member of our union,” Edgar Franks, Zeferino’s longtime colleague and friend, tells Refinery29 Somos. “We think that this was politically motivated to silence a lot of the organizing and the activism that has been happening to better the lives of immigrants.”

Just days before Zeferino’s arrest, immigration reform advocate Jeanette Vizguerra, an undocumented mother of four, was detained by ICE agents at a Target near Denver, where she worked. Vizguerra made international headlines in 2017 when she sought sanctuary in a Denver church for three years to avoid deportation during President Donald Trump’s first term. That same year, she was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people. But on March 17, 2025, she was surrounded by ICE agents on a work break and taken into custody without a warrant. She is currently held at the GEO Detention Facility in Aurora, Colorado, where supporters rally weekly to demand her release.

While ICE has been targeting organizers and participants of pro-Palestine protests in college campuses across the U.S., the detainment of Zeferino and Vizguerra indicates that the Trump administration is widening its scope of political enemies. 

But this isn’t exactly new. There’s a long history of ICE targeting activists, according to George Carrillo, a political organizer and CEO of the Hispanic Construction Council. He cites the arrest of Elvira Arellano — founder of the immigration advocacy group La Familia Latina Unida and an advocate for asylum status for immigrants — in 2007, as well as the detainment of Maru Mora-Villalpando — who led anti-detention center protests — in 2017.

“The pattern is hard to ignore,” Carrillo tells Somos. “Documents and reports, including from the NYU Immigrant Rights Clinic, highlight surveillance and arrests tied directly to advocacy efforts. ICE often denies targeting activists, but internal emails and the timing of arrests tell a different story.”

Tony Tian-Ren Lin, a sociologist and senior advisor at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center, says this overt targeting represents a chilling evolution in U.S. politics. “Activists used to be targeted under cover,” Lin tells Somos. “We know that in America, the FBI was following and taping Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. We know the Black Panthers were targeted as well as the Young Lords. But what we are seeing today with ICE, they just arrest people off the streets, and that's very new and very alarming.” 

Lin also notes the contradictions in current immigration enforcement. “In the past, you could have said that [the U.S.] extracted the labor it needed and then, once they could not extract any more labor from you, they’ll throw you away,” Lin explains. “Now, when they still need your labor, and they could still extract labor from you, they're throwing you into a Salvadorian jail. That’s the irrationality of it.”

For Franks, activists are being detained because they are advocating for better working conditions and immigration reform. Their work is powerful and it threatens the status quo. “With how active I believe [Zeferino] has been throughout his whole teenage years to now, he's always been out there, he’s a pretty public person, talking about issues that have to do with farmworkers and immigrants,” Franks says. “He's been a really outspoken member of our community and an important member of our union and for workers.”

Carrillo sees a larger, systemic threat. “When there’s full party control across the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, the essential checks and balances of democracy erode,” he says. “ICE targeting Latine activists goes beyond silencing voices. It raises deeper concerns about the rule of law.”

The targeting of Zeferino and Vizguerra, in particular, sends a message to immigrants not to make political stances or organize around the issues in their communities. But for Franks, this shows how successful Latine activists have been in advocating for immigrants’ rights. “I think Latino organizing, especially in the immigrant sector, has been really effective one way or another,” he says. “And it's always been done through direct action, through policy, through marching. and protest. Despite a lot of the hardships, there were gains that were being made, so the targeting of organizers is being done to discourage people from pursuing those fights.”

But here’s the thing, Franks adds: “All these detentions and deportations, they only make us want to organize better and more urgently.” 

Activists and communities aren’t backing down. As Carrillo put it: “While ICE’s actions challenge the resilience of Latine changemakers, the fight for justice continues, fueled by community solidarity and the unwavering commitment to protect those who speak truth to power.”