On June 11, as the sun bore down on an uncomfortably hot afternoon in Baltimore, four neighbors met under the shade of a tree on Ellerslie Avenue, a quiet road that divides Waverly from Ednor Gardens. Most were meeting for the first time, brought together by outrage over a Mother’s Day ICE raid just a block away and a shared commitment to take action. They were armed with clipboards and “know your rights” flyers tucked under their arms. Their goal: over the next two hours, knock on as many doors as possible to warn neighbors about escalating ICE activity and invite them to join a growing community defense network.
“We’re just part of a network of neighbors,” explained one canvasser, who declined to give their name, citing safety concerns. Those with more experience helped the newcomers run through the script: knock gently but firmly, introduce yourself, ask if the resident has heard about recent ICE activity, and offer ways to get involved. For those interested, there was a Signal group — an encrypted messaging app designed to keep participants secure from surveillance. Residents could choose their level of participation: receive alerts, observe, film, or engage more directly when ICE is spotted. That day’s efforts recruited more than two dozen new members to the group.
This grassroots mutual aid effort in Baltimore is part of a growing national movement: communities taking it upon themselves to defend their own as the Trump administration ramps up deportations and expands ICE’s reach. Driven by a quota of 3,000 arrests a day, ICE is increasingly targeting longtime community members — day laborers, asylum seekers, parents — over 70% of whom have no criminal history or have overstayed visas in a broken immigration system with few viable legal pathways to citizenship.
The neighbors’ work that day followed a march of hundreds through Highlandtown, a neighborhood with one of the city’s biggest immigrant communities. Marchers expressed solidarity with recent mass protests in Los Angeles sparked by a wave of ICE raids and the deployment of armed troops to suppress peaceful demonstrations. They visited grocery stores and other businesses where 16 day laborers were recently detained during ICE raids.
Organizers from CASA, a leading immigrants’ rights organization, reminded the crowd that many of those being targeted fled violence fueled by decades of U.S. policy in Latin America, including funding death squads and economic sanctions. Now, they’re being met with plainclothes agents dragging fathers from grocery stores in front of their children.
The Trump administration has launched a full-scale campaign to turn its violent rhetoric into reality, increasingly using military tactics and equipment on anyone in its path. Trump has accused migrants of “poisoning the blood of the country” — echoing Nazi propaganda. Cities like Baltimore, which have large immigrant populations and limit cooperation with ICE, are in the crosshairs.
“Current ICE actions are pushing people further into the shadows,” said Crisaly de los Santos, Baltimore and Central Maryland Director at CASA. “They’re creating a climate of fear where many in our communities no longer trust local law enforcement — largely because they can’t tell ICE apart from other agencies. That lack of clarity and transparency discourages people from reporting crimes or seeking help, which only further harms our communities.”
A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation highlights how immigration enforcement is stoking fear and uncertainty among undocumented immigrants and their families. Many parents report skipping medical appointments, avoiding public spaces, and feeling heightened anxiety — conditions that researchers say directly undermine mental and physical health.
On June 8, masked ICE agents in an unmarked vehicle detained two brothers near the intersection of E. Baltimore and Ellwood Street. Word spread quickly, and neighbors rushed to respond, several witnesses told Baltimore Beat. Some stood in front of the ICE vehicles, chanting and physically blocking their path. Others used their own cars to try and prevent the agents from leaving.The crowd had no training, no coordinated plan — just a shared sense of urgency.
“Masked men are taking our neighbors. It shakes me up in a way because my maternal uncle was a Holocaust survivor. The idea of sticking up for the people around you—it’s just really important,” one witness who declined to be named due to safety concerns told the Beat.
Buzz Grambo, a local resident and military veteran, saw a post on a private Facebook page that tracks ICE activity, and rushed over. “I arrived after ICE had people in custody. I was yelling at ICE, telling them they were violating their oaths,” he said. “I also ride around the city on my scooter looking for ICE to yell at. I’m retired, so I have lots of free time.” Grambo sees resistance to ICE as a patriotic duty.
ICE called for backup, and Baltimore police arrived on the scene — though, according to witnesses, BPD officers mostly stood by, conducting crowd control rather than assisting ICE. Ultimately, police cleared the way, and the brothers were taken into custody.
Baltimore is a welcoming city, meaning it limits cooperation with federal authorities seeking to detain immigrants without a signed warrant. Now that the Baltimore Police Department is under local control for the first time since the Civil War, advocates are calling for stronger protections. As Councilmember Mark Parker told the Beat during the march, the incident revealed how unprepared the city is to respond to ICE activity. “We had policies written on paper. Now we need to tighten them up,” he said.
The neighbors’ intervention wasn’t successful, but it wasn’t in vain. It added urgency to local organizing and helped build support for the City Council’s recent two million dollar budget allocation for immigrant services and legal defense. The additional funding for the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs will support case management, legal support, and wraparound services for families torn apart by detentions.
Parker emphasized the importance of legislative action on a local level.
“The biggest impact, given the constraints of the legal governing system we’re sitting in, is to make sure that people who are detained get every single opportunity to access legal services and to make sure that their families, who are left behind in our communities, whose loved ones have been ripped away from them by the federal government, are cared for,” Parker said.
At the canvassing meetup in June, neighbors recounted how ICE often arrives in unmarked SUVs, with agents dressed in plainclothes. “We don’t want our neighbors snatched off the street,” said another canvasser. “We want to be ready.”
And that readiness is growing. The neighborhood Signal group now includes over 86 local residents. Volunteers also collect phone numbers of elderly neighbors who don’t use Signal, and commit to calling them directly if ICE is spotted. The group connects residents with regular trainings through organizations like the Baltimore Rapid Response Network and Sanctuary Streets Baltimore.
They remind neighbors that the city may call itself a sanctuary, but that status won’t protect anyone unless people look out for each other.
Across the country, community members and elected officials have increasingly put their bodies on the line and faced arrest for nonviolently resisting ICE detaining individuals without due process or judicial warrants, or for demanding accountability from notorious ICE facilities.
“I think we need to use whatever means necessary to stop this from happening, including nonviolent resistance, suing them, and using every legal and legislative tool we have,” said Councilmember Odette Ramos, the first person of Latinx heritage on the City Council.
And so, neighborhood by neighborhood, door by door, Baltimoreans are offering a blueprint not just for solidarity, but for community defense.