Volunteers with Union del Barrio look for immigration officers and post videos and alerts, warning people to seek shelter
awn broke on a foggy morning on Terminal Island, an artificial slice of land that rests where the city of Los Angeles meets the Pacific Ocean. Sea lions barked in the distance as sleek, white SUVs drove through a checkpoint into a federal prison. Chavo Romero, his hair pulled back in a ponytail, sipped coffee as he watched them.
He awoke before daybreak, taking the day off from his public health job to drive here in the dark. Romero is part of a coalition of trained volunteers called Union del Barrio, who patrol the barrios, or neighbourhoods, to look for immigration enforcement, “La Migra.” When they spot Ice activity, they post videos that go viral, alerting people to seek shelter.
Since June, Union del Barrio volunteers have been patrolling Terminal Island, where they say federal immigration agents have been staging enforcement operations. Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other agencies arrive here early in the morning, Romero said, before being dispatched to conduct raids across southern California. “They’re clocking in to go kidnap people. They see us, they flip us off.”
