Under Trump's Crackdown, a New Crop of Immigrant Rights Groups Rises
''Someone is being kidnapped!'' the caller said to Danny Timpona, the operator who answered the phone. His group, the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, had been preparing for such a moment.
Within minutes, Mr. Timpona sent out volunteers to verify the report in Somerville, a suburb northwest of Boston. When they arrived to empty streets, they began knocking on doors, looking for anyone who could help them piece together what occurred. One neighbor offered footage from a home security camera.
The video, which has since racked up millions of views, captured agents from the Department of Homeland Security surrounding Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen and doctoral student at Tufts University who spent the next six weeks in detention. It gave the nation one of the earliest scenes of the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration.
A crop of grass-roots immigrant rights networks like Mr. Timpona's has been rising across the country to try to halt President Trump's agenda of mass deportation. They aimto quickly corroborate the presence of immigration officers. They document apprehensions that might otherwise go unnoticed. And they spread the word on social media about people being detained.
These groups have recently been most visible in Los Angeles, where an immigration raid at a clothing wholesaler prompted a rapid response from activists who confronted federal agents. Days of protests followed.
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