The Americans Who Stood Up for Immigrants This Year
Faced with the Trump-Miller firehose of cruelty, many people rose up to defend their neighbors, friends, and fellow worshipers.
IT HAS BEEN HARD TO TAKE IN the flood of news stories this year about immigration. When you start paying attention to this issue, it’s easy to fall into a deep, dark vortex of pain and despair. That’s what the mass deportation regime is designed, in part, to do—to keep its targets anxious and its opponents demoralized. I feel it from covering these stories every day, and I can tell from the comments sections that many of you feel the same way.
But we haven’t seen only fear and terror this year.
At the heart of mass deportation is the idea that all of these people are criminals, the worst of the worst; you shouldn’t care what happens to them, and you should want them deported. Americans, however, from Pennsylvania to Portland, from Los Angeles to Montana, have responded: No. These are my neighbors. These are my friends. We go to church together. She carpools my kids to school. Our children play soccer together.
I put out a call for our readers to share stories of when folks fought back and stood up for immigrants this year. Here are a few selections from what they sent us.
Small town, big heart
When residents of Waldport, Oregon—about three hours southwest of Portland—heard this month that a local hotel owner was going to sign a contract to rent space to ICE, they mobilized. A December 10 city council meeting became a fight for the town’s soul.
The city council received almost 700 emails from residents opposing the deal, which is a lot in a city with a population of 2,200. With 120 residents filling a community center for the meeting, the city manager informed residents that the hotel owner had decided not to sign the contract to provide lodging for ICE agents. This local story moved me. It also struck Donovan from Oregon, our subscriber who sent it in; he said he “was moved to tears of admiration” from “salt-of-the-earth citizens” at the city council meeting.
It can feel daunting to try to oppose the force of the federal government—especially when that force shows up with combat fatigues, big guns, unmarked vans, and masked agents. But in this case, all it took to keep federal agents away was a few hundred citizens saying, Not in our town.1
Stopping detentions
The mass deportation campaign is defined by two features that are, in a way, inseparable: the overt cruelty and the heedless illegality. One of the most frustrating kinds of stories to cover is about people who are here legally but are still being swept up in the federal dragnet just because they’re Latino. That’s what happened to Ruperto Vicens-Marquez, a chef from Monmouth County, New Jersey who owns two restaurants with his brother and has a valid work permit through 2029. Federal agents arrested him along with someone else they suspected of being in the country illegally.
But the community didn’t forget about him. They held rallies in his name, including two in which a hundred people showed up to demand his release. These efforts were boosted by 45 letters of support to the court.
The community’s outpouring of support for Vicens-Marquez led Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) to join the fight to push for his release. And Atlantic Highlands Mayor Lori Hohenleitner spoke up in Vicens-Marquez’s defense, creating and promoting a GoFundMe that led community members to donate more than $100,000 for his family.
The judge who ordered Vincens-Marquez’s release after he spent a month in detention said the outpouring of support made it clear that the chef had very deep ties to the community, as HuffPost reported.
Hohenleitner and a former council member later made a trip to Newark to pay Vicens-Marquez’s bond, and after he finally reached home, the community held another rally to welcome him back.
“When a lot of people get together, at least in my case, things are possible,” Vicens-Marquez said. “Miracles happen.”
Taking care
I’ve written a lot about Chicago this year, but here’s a story I missed: Citizens are raising money to help Chicagoland families affected by ICE this holiday season. They call their effort Operation Midway Bliss, a play on “Midway Blitz,” the name DHS gave its recent enforcement operation in the city.2 As of this writing, they’ve raised just short of $32,000.
Down to business
When I was in Chicago, I saw many businesses with signs posted that said ICE wasn’t allowed inside. The same thing happened in North Carolina recently, largely thanks to the efforts of Siembra, an immigrant-rights advocacy group. As the left-wing outlet Portside reported, businesses and restaurants across the state festooned their windows with signs bearing messages like “private area,” “Fourth Amendment workplace,” and “There’s always room at our table, but to enter past this point, we’ll need to see a warrant signed by a judge.”
Siembra has so far recruited 250 businesses to use this strategy across North Carolina, and they have created a workbook outlining various strategies to combat ICE that they aim to make available across the country. It even includes printable posters like the ones that have become a common sight in North Carolina.
These efforts, along with know-your-rights training sessions, are helping people defend themselves and their neighbors. This feels like a big lesson of 2025: Rather than waiting for “the law” to protect them, more and more people are accepting that they need to do the legwork proactively to protect themselves from those abusing the law.
The injustices will continue in 2026. They will, at times, feel overwhelming. But I learned this past year that so many Americans will put their money—or their time, their creativity, and their homes—toward fighting back when they feel the country they know is slipping away.
Jesus back home
Finally, this brings me back to one of the stories from this year I know I’ll never forget. Remember Jesus, the Pennsylvania carpenter who was arrested and detained by ICE over the summer? The headline was so outlandish that some even accused us of making up the whole thing. Jesus Teran was taken in July, leading his union representatives, church leaders, and community members to fight for his release. Our Bulwark community even helped raise thousands of dollars for his family on GoFundMe.
Here’s a happy update: After three months in detention, he was released in October. As this year that has seen so many families torn apart and so many people treated inhumanely comes to an end, at least Jesus will be spending this Christmas with his loved ones.
One of the reasons the hotel owners wanted to sign a contract with ICE was that their hotel has steadily been losing money since 2021, and their bid to sell it in 2023 failed. But here’s a bit of fascinating trivia: The husband-and-wife owners are Moni Mansano and Dee Mansano—Hollywood makeup-artist legends who worked on stone-cold classics like Mortal Kombat, Hook (literally one of my favorites), and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.
Thanks to Bulwark+ member Sandy G for flagging this for me!
And don't forget someone who's work instrumental in standing up for Immigrants this year....
Adrian Carrasquillo! Come back and see us in Chicago.
Adrian, you are such a value-add! Thank you for highlighting the horrendous but also the the hopeful like today’s report ~ May the work of thoughtful, compassionate, committed people continue in all realms!