Masked Men, Revoked Visas, Vanishing Rights: A Stark Warning by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Masked Men, Revoked Visas, Vanishing Rights: A Stark Warning

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

On May 21, 2025, a fiery exchange between Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio lit up the House Foreign Affairs Committee — and the internet. With over a million views and counting, the viral clip is more than a headline-grabbing moment. It’s a warning shot across the bow of American democracy (see video below).

At the center of the clash was a disturbing case involving a university student — a legal visa holder — who authored an op-ed critical of the Trump administration's position on Gaza. That piece, which expressed a dissenting but constitutionally protected opinion, apparently drew the ire of someone high up. 

What followed reads like something from a surveillance-state dystopia: the student was reportedly taken from the street by masked agents, held without due process in a Louisiana detention center, and had their visa revoked under orders signed by none other than Secretary Rubio.

Jayapal was unflinching in her rebuke. Her voice rose not just in volume, but in defense of civil liberties, demanding accountability for what she called a blatant violation of the Constitution. Rubio, now tasked with carrying out foreign policy in an increasingly hardline administration, offered little reassurance — instead deflecting, denying, and ultimately defending the administration’s actions under vague "national security" justifications.

Let’s call this what it is: authoritarianism. The idea that expressing dissent, especially as a non-citizen, now puts you at risk of indefinite detention without a hearing — it’s chilling. The Constitution doesn't evaporate at the border, and certainly not for students attending American universities who use their voice to engage in public discourse.

This isn’t about left vs. right. It’s about the foundation of our democratic values. We don’t disappear people for disagreeing with the government — or at least, we shouldn’t.

Secretary of State Rubio may claim national security. Congresswoman Jayapal calls it what it is: a betrayal of everything the U.S. is supposed to stand for. Free speech. Due process. Human dignity.

For those watching closely, this moment isn’t an outlier — it’s a pattern. From escalating surveillance of student activists to legislative efforts that criminalize protest, the space for dissent in this country is shrinking. The Jayapal-Rubio clash just exposed how far we’ve already slid.

Attorney Heide Plummer

To this, we also add the recent arrest of Heidi Plummer, an attorney and U.S. citizen in Orange County who recently got swept up by ICE agents and put into a detention center for about an hour-and-a-half after getting caught up in a park raid near her home (Saunders, 2025). So bizarre. 

This is not the time for silence. This is not the time for neutrality. Call it authoritarianism, call it fascism — the label matters less than the urgency.

We cannot normalize this.

I’m also deeply concerned about what this means for people from other countries who are hoping to migrate to the U.S. The Saunders (2025) piece notes that Trump has already deported over 100,000 individuals—fewer than Biden had at a comparable point in his presidency. 

But as one immigration expert pointed out, many of Biden’s deportations occurred immediately at the border, largely involving recent crossings. What’s clearly different now is not just the numbers — it’s the tone. There’s an unmistakable cruelty in how this administration approaches peaceful, non-criminal immigrants who are simply trying to build lives and contribute to our country.

God help us if all it takes to be expelled from the U.S. is writing an op-ed or taking a quiet walk in the park — only to be stopped and arrested by ICE. If that’s the bar, who’s next?

Reference

Saunders, D. (2025, June 19). OC attorney says she was detained in ICE Raid at Santa Ana Park, Daily Journal. https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/386228-oc-attorney-says-she-was-detained-in-ice-raid-at-santa-ana-park

ICE continues to terrorize our community. This report by policy organization, CLASP, is harrowing.  You can download the entire report HERE. 

-Angela Valenzuela

The Day That ICE Came: How Worksite Raids Are Once Again Harming Children and Families

IMMIGRANT CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

Young Men and Women of Color

Report/Brief

July 13, 2020

By Wendy Cervantes, 

Rebecca Ullrich, & 

Vanessa Meraz

Introduction

As a nation, we value hard work and believe that all children deserve the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Immigrants have played a critical role in our workforce throughout history, and children of immigrants now comprise one in four of all children in the United States.[1] Yet, hardworking immigrants continue to be humiliated and punished due to an unjust system that relies on and often exploits their labor. Their children, the majority of whom are U.S. citizens, are forced to suffer the long-term harmful consequences of harsh immigration policy decisions that are often politically motivated.[2]

Recent efforts to ramp up immigration enforcement in the interior of the United States and drastic changes in enforcement policies—such as making parents of U.S. citizen children priorities for deportation—have made families across the country increasingly vulnerable to being separated. The reemergence of worksite raids is an example of the Trump Administration’s enforcement-heavy approach to immigration policy that harms not only the workers targeted, but also their families and communities. Previous research on worksite enforcement clearly documents the short- and long-term harms to children’s physical and mental health as well as the strain on local communities attempting to respond to families’ immediate and long-term needs.[3] Public outcry against massive worksite raids under the George W. Bush Administration led to the creation of “humanitarian guidelines” to better protect children and other individuals impacted by worksite actions. The practice of large-scale worksite enforcement largely came to an end under the Obama Administration.

Shortly after President Trump took office, officials in his administration ordered the reinstitution of worksite raids, which they have conducted more frequently and in larger scale over time.[4] In the summer of 2018, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out multiple raids, including large-scale operations that each had more than 100 arrests. A series of raids on poultry processing plants in Mississippi in August 2019—resulting in the arrest of nearly 700 workers and affecting more than one thousand children—remains the largest singlestate worksite operation in U.S. history. The national scope of these raids, their unpredictable nature, and the excessive force with which they have been carried out has raised concerns once again about the high human cost of such operations.

Building on research conducted in 2017,5 the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) conducted a series of site visits in 2019 to document the impact of recent worksite raids on children, families, and communities. It is important to note that the devastating impacts of the worksite raids covered in this study represent yet another insurmountable hurdle for children and families already affected by the stresses of poverty, increased anti-immigrant discrimination, and constantly changing immigration policies.

Across all the sites, a common theme was the excessive use of force and the highly dramatic nature of the operations. The workers arrested in the raids were often mothers and fathers—many of whom had lived in the community for decades, rarely missed a day of work, and had no criminal record. Workers and community members alike expressed difficulty understanding the logic behind the choice to arrest workers in such an aggressive, public manner. Many immigrants talked about the large number of agents, often at least one per worker, the use of helicopters, and such physical and verbal aggression as pushing and yelling while handcuffing and transporting workers. In Mississippi, several providers and community members likened the raid to a terrorist attack.

The findings in this report and in previous studies are clear on the serious implications for our country’s collective future: if we continue down a path of harsh enforcement-only immigration policies and disregard the safety and long-term wellbeing of millions of children in immigrant families across the country, we as a nation will ultimately pay the price. Rather than undermine the healthy development of children of immigrants through policies that separate them from their parents or prevent them from having their basic needs met, it is critical that policymakers reverse course to advance policies that address the significant harm already inflicted upon our nation’s children and help them thrive

Key Findings Include:

• Family Separation: Families experienced separation ranging from several hours to months, including long-term separation due to the deportation of a parent.
• Harm to Children’s Mental and Physical Health: Children experienced significant harm to their mental and physical health immediately after the raid and in the long term, including changes to their daily routines.
• Harm to Parents’ Mental and Physical Health: Parents arrested in the raids and those left behind experienced adverse consequences to their mental and physical wellbeing, which were often exacerbated by related hardships and the need to provide emotional support for children.
• Economic Hardship: Families faced additional economic hardships as a result of the raids stemming from the sudden loss of income and difficulty finding employment.
• Stress on Providers and Community Leaders: Providers and community leaders working directly with immigrant families affected by the raids had to quickly organize and shift their priorities to meet the short- and long-term needs of families, often with consequences for their own mental and physical health.

ICE Raids happening in North Austin right now: Línea de Defensa Comunitaria (Community Hotline)

ICE Raids happening in North Austin right now

ICE has been conducting “secret” raids here in Austin. According to our records they seem to be targeting north Austin. They took 22 on Monday, and 17 on Tuesday. No numbers right now for yesterday or today. 

We suspect they will continue throughout the remainder of the week.

Some of the calls indicate that ICE is literally knocking on people’s doors and arresting them.  They are also pulling people over on their way to work in the morning 6am-7am. 

 

We should also all reach out to our Congressional representatives and tell them that we need fair and humane immigration reform, and a pathway to citizenship for our DREAMers.

Here is a flyer to a hotline (512) 270-1515. English and Spanish spoken. If you know of anyone who could use it please pass it along. 

 -Angela

"Operation Mega": Trump Plans Massive Raids on Immigrant Communities Starting Mid-September

Read here about "Operation Mega" which is the name for raids that are intended to be historic in size.

As if Harvey and Irma were not enough to be dealing with right now as a country, Operation Mega portends much added cruelty and oppression raining down upon our community...  All of this is so atrocious and devastating.  How much more pain and scapegoating must our community endure?

Know your rights, my friends.  And be strong.  Resources provided below.

  

-Angela

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                     September 7, 2017 Trump Plans Massive Raids on Immigrant Communities Starting Mid-September Horrific Plan to Target 6,000 - 10,000 for Mass Deportation is Part of Escalating Attacks on Immigrants Washington, DC — Detention Watch Network (DWN), the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), National Immigration Law Center, United We Dream (UWD) and the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) condemn Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) plan to conduct a nationwide immigration enforcement operation from mid- to late-September. Multiple sources within and close to ICE have shared information with advocates about the operation, which ICE is calling “Operation Mega.”   In addition to apprehending targeted individuals prioritized in the president’s January 25 Executive Order, ICE agents will apprehend undocumented or otherwise removable individuals encountered during the operation, per ICE policy under the Trump administration. These raids are intended to be historic in size, targeting between 6,000 and 10,000 immigrants. Operation Mega is part of a wholesale and escalating attack on all immigrants. In the wake of the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program on Tuesday, it is clear that this administration will not exercise restraint in enacting an anti-immigrant and white supremacist agenda. In fact, earlier this year, Trump’s top immigration agent declared that “no population is off the table.” This operation would devastate immigrant communities, separate families and endanger lives. Enforcement operations inevitably and intentionally result in detentions of community members, key community leaders, primary caregivers and many others. Expanding the number of individuals in immigration detention this quickly is a recipe for cruel conditions, deaths, and rights violations on a massive scale. In the most recent enforcement operation for which ICE released data, approximately 70% of individuals arrested were what ICE calls “collateral” arrests - undocumented individuals who face arrest and detention just because ICE encountered them while they were looking for someone else. The operation is scheduled to occur as Congress decides whether to fund a massive expansion of the immigration detention system. “Operation Mega is a cynical attempt by ICE to manipulate the congressional appropriations process. It is no coincidence that this operation is planned for the last weeks of the government’s fiscal year. ICE is intentionally elevating detention numbers before the new fiscal year to claim an ‘operational need’ for more funding and more detention beds,”  said Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network. “For too long, even members of Congress who have condemned attacks against immigrant communities have voted to fund ICE to implement those same attacks.  With Operation Mega, ICE has once again shown its hand. ICE’s ‘need’ for additional funding is politically manufactured and neither Congress nor taxpayers should reward such cruel and cynical behavior.” Greisa Martinez Rosas, advocacy director for United We Dream added, “Two days ago, Trump killed the DACA program which protected me and 800,000 immigrant youth from deportation. Today he has tried to deflect criticism by tweeting that immigrant youth had ‘nothing to worry about.’ Seriously? How can we not worry when we learn that ICE is about to launch massive raids? Congress needs to defund these agents who are armed to attack families and get to work now on passing a clean Dream Act. The time for action is now!” Avideh Moussavian, Senior Policy Attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, condemned the planned operation, stating, “This administration is intent on making life for vibrant immigrant communities as painful as possible. Large scale raids operations designed to artificially manufacture the need for DHS’ mass detention and deportation budget are unconscionable. We remain undeterred in calling out DHS for terrorizing our communities and in calling on Congress to not allow our tax dollars to go to ICE and CBP agents separating immigrant families.” “An operation of this massive scale would devastate immigrant communities and endanger lives. Families will be separated and children will be traumatized,” said Michelle Brané, Director for Migrant Rights and Justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission. “These actions do not make us safer. On the contrary, they undermine the rule of law by invoking fear and blatantly ignoring due process.” Contrary to ICE’s intent to silence communities with fear, communities are instead prepared to defend themselves against these operations, which have occurred for years on a smaller scale.  Groups are also encouraging local, state and federal elected officials to work with their constituents to record abuses and human rights violations committed by ICE agents in the community and in immigration detention centers. State and local elected officials should also take immediate steps to ensure that local and state resources are not used to help implement Operation Mega or other enforcement actions. “We encourage community members at risk to review their safety plans and tips for how they can defend their rights if they encounter ICE,” said Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director, National Immigrant Justice Center. “All people have the right to remain silent. If stopped or arrested, you do not have to answer an immigration agent’s questions. If an immigration agent knocks on your door and does not have a warrant, do not open the door.” Know Your Rights! Resources for the community include: NIJC, Know Your Rights: Preparing for ICE Enforcement Actions UWD Deportation Defense Card Immigrant Defense Project: A toolkit to prepare and protect our communities ### Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition of organizations and individuals working to expose and challenge the injustices of the United States’ immigration detention and deportation system and advocate for profound change that promotes the rights and dignity of all persons. Founded in 1997 by immigrant rights groups, DWN brings together advocates to unify strategy and build partnerships on a local and national level to end immigration detention. Visit www.detentionwatchnetwork.org. Follow @DetentionWatch.  United We Dream (UWD) is the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the nation, a powerful nonpartisan network made up of 55 local groups in 26 states. UWD organizes and advocates for the dignity and fair treatment of immigrant youth and families, regardless of immigration status. We seek to address the inequities and obstacles faced by immigrant youth and believe that by empowering immigrant youth, we can advance the cause of the entire community—justice for all immigrants. You can find more about UWD online at www.unitedwedream.org Heartland Alliance's National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) is a nongovernmental organization dedicated to ensuring human rights protections and access to justice for all immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers through a unique combination of direct services, policy reform, impact litigation and public education. Visit immigrantjustice.org. Follow @NIJC.  Women's Refugee Commission (WRC) improves the lives and protects the rights of women, children, and youth displaced by conflict and crisis. Women’s Refugee Commission researches their needs, identifies solutions and advocates for programs and policies to strengthen their resilience and drive change in humanitarian practice. Since its founding in 1989, it has been a leading expert on the needs of refugee women and children, and the policies that can protect and empower them. Visit womensrefugeecommission.org.  National Immigration Law Center (NILC) is one of the leading organizations in the U.S. exclusively dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of immigrants with low income. At NILC, we believe that all people who live in the U.S. should have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Over the years, we’ve been at the forefront of many of the country’s greatest challenges when it comes to immigration issues, and we play a major leadership role in addressing the real-life impact of policies that affect the ability of low-income immigrants to prosper and thrive. Visit www.nilc.org and follow us at @NILC_org. http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/pressroom

2,000 terrified children skip school following an ICE raid in New Mexico

It's heart wrenching to see how these immigrant, Mexican children are being terrorized and traumatized in New Mexico such that according to a 2013 Health Impact Study,

“almost three-fourths of undocumented parents with children under the age of 18 reported that their children experienced symptoms of PTSD, including repetitive thoughts about stressful experiences, avoidance of certain activities, and hyper-alert behavior.”

 I just posted yesterday on a disturbing piece that just came out in The New Yorker titled, The Trauma of Facing Deportation in Sweden (March 29, 2017) where coinciding with families facing deportation orders, otherwise perfectly healthy children children enter suddenly into a comatose-like state that they can stay in for years.  They are described by physicians as suffering from "resignation syndrome" ("uppgivenhetssyndrom.") 

Why this type of emotional or psychological response?  The answer is in the question.  It is indeed a type that is culturally mediated and explains why at least to date it is only observed in this specific context in the world.

This doesn't necessarily mean that they suffer more than other children roughly similarly situated such as in this story about New Mexico—or for that matter, anywhere in the U.S., including Austin, Texas, where we are witnessing raids, but rather that they cope and suffer differently.  Not to pit forms of oppression against each other but rather to underscore the importance of culture and context.

Drawing a comparison to the Holocaust in The New Yorker, survivor Bruno Bettelheim observed that some concentration camp prisoners were

“so totally exhausted, both physically and emotionally, that they had given the environment total power over them.” They “stopped eating, sat mute and motionless in corners, and expired.”

As I write, I wonder about our immigrant fathers, mothers and children behind bars at this very moment in U.S. prisons—many of them detained for weeks and months.  This of course amounts to massive profits for the prison-industrial complex and a nightmare for those ensnared within it.  I was pleased to see that Sweden is changing its policies in this regard.  We in the U.S. still have a long way to go.

Angela Valenzuela

c/s

2,000 terrified children skip school following an ICE raid in New Mexico

By Gabe Ortiz  

2017/03/23 · 15:33

 

 

• Daily Kos

Terrified immigrant parents kept thousands of children home from school following an ICE raid that targeted the New Mexico community of Las Cruces last month, resulting in a 60 percent spike in absences that the district’s superintendent called “alarming”:

On February 15th, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ice) officers conducted a raid in Las Cruces, arresting people at a trailer park on the outskirts of town. The raid came a few weeks after President Trump signed two executive orders, signalling his plans to fulfill a campaign promise of cracking down on undocumented immigrants. Rumors spread that there were further raids planned, though none took place. On February 16th, a Thursday, Las Cruces’s public schools saw a sixty-per-cent spike in absences compared to the previous week—twenty-one hundred of the district’s twenty-five thousand students missed school. Two thousand students stayed away again the next day. Attendance returned to normal the following week, which made the two-day rash of absences all the more pronounced. “It was alarming,” Greg Ewing, the district’s superintendent, told me. News of the raid caused such fear in the community that Ewing wrote a letter to parents on the 16th, in English and Spanish, reassuring them that “we do not anticipate any ice activity occurring on school campuses.”

At the city’s high schools—Arrowhead Park Early College High is nearly entirely Latino, according to the New Yorker—absentee rates went up by 25 percent following the raid and subsequent rumors. But at the city’s elementary and middle schools, where younger students are more likely to be dropped off by an undocumented immigrant parent or relative, the numbers skyrocketed.

“In the two days after the raids, absences at elementary schools rose by almost a hundred and fifty per cent.”

ICE issued a 2011 “policy memo to field officers outlining a list of so-called ‘sensitive locations’—including schools, churches, and hospitals—where they should refrain from searching, interrogating, or arresting individuals ‘for the purpose of immigration enforcement,’” but advocates don’t trust Trump regime officials to uphold Obama-era instructions.
What is assured here is that we are traumatizing a generation of children. According to a 2013 Health Impact Study, “almost three-fourths of undocumented parents with children under the age of 18 reported that their children experienced symptoms of PTSD, including repetitive thoughts about stressful experiences, avoidance of certain activities, and hyper-alert behavior.”

“Nearly 30 percent of undocumented parents reported that their children were afraid all or most of the time.”

Another study found that children who have had one parent who has been deported “may also suffer from poverty, diminished access to food and health care, mental health and behavioral problems and limited educational opportunities.” An estimated 5 million U.S. citizen children in this nation have at least one undocumented parent.
As raids continue to terrorize immigrant communities across the nation, expect these kinds of tragedies to become more and more common. Donald Trump keeps pledging that America will return to winning again, but it’s really our kids who are losing here.