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Local activists say the surge in reported, but unconfirmed, immigration enforcement activity in Tucson reflects a genuine heightened presence of agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol, which does enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border but often assists in ICE operations in the interior of the country.

“I have community members and family members that aren’t even leaving their homes right now, not even to go to the grocery store,” said immigration attorney Alba Jaramillo of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, and co-executive director of the Immigration Law and Justice Network. “They’re like prisoners in their home.”

The Mexican consulate in Tucson said the office has not received any reports of ICE raids in Tucson as of Tuesday. The ����Ӱ��AV has confirmed one recent case of a targeted ICE arrest outside the Home Depot at El Con Mall on Sunday.

ICE’s southwest deputy communications chief, Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, has not responded to the Star’s multiple inquiries about ICE enforcement activity in Tucson.

But reports of ICE activity to a local “Rapid Response” hotline — through which people detained by ICE, or witnesses to ICE activity, can request immediate community support — have been pouring in from the community, Jaramillo said.

The Rapid Response line is run by volunteers with Coalición de Derechos Humanos, which is leading a network of local human-rights organizations in helping the immigrant community prepare and respond to the threat of mass deportations under the Trump administration.

“This week was a constant level of stress. Our hotline ... seems like it goes off every few minutes, multiple times an hour” with a report of ICE activity, Jaramillo said.

Activists say some parents are keeping their children home from school, and the pastor of a Spanish-speaking Tucson church said attendance is down by about half since President Donald Trump took office Jan. 20, in part due to the pastor’s own suggestion that undocumented churchgoers attend services remotely for now.

Compared to the first Trump administration, “it’s a totally different level of fear (among congregants). They really think that the worst could happen and they could be detained,” said Pastor Mateo Chavez, who asked the Star not to identify his church, to avoid making it a target. “Maybe I’m paranoid, but I’m kind of thinking we’re sitting ducks.”

Advocates say the Trump administration’s actions are aimed at spreading fear, in an effort to push people to “self-deport.” And some immigration experts say ICE under the Trump administration is engaging in “deportation theater,” including publishing daily ICE arrest figures on social media.

It’s also heavily publicizing deportation flights that were already ongoing, but without the fanfare, under the Biden administration.

“Deportation flights have begun,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a Jan. 24 on X, formerly Twitter. “President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the entire world: if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face severe consequences.”

The Trump administration on Jan. 21 reversed long-standing ICE guidance that limited immigration arrests at sensitive locations including schools, churches and hospitals. The reversal has contributed to the sense that nowhere is safe, advocates say.

South Tucson Mayor Roxanna Valenzuela said she received an alert last week suggesting ICE was at a local school, but when she went to the location it turned out to be a tactical training operation. She hadn’t heard of any confirmed raids, as of Monday.

“The sight of ICE vehicles puts people in a panic,” she said. Some undocumented families are asking friends who have legal status to walk their kids to and from school, she said.

“I think everybody’s life is paused, just waiting to see what happens, if they’re safe to be members of society again,” she said.

Long-time Tucson immigration advocate Margo Cowan said while fear is understandable, the public must also resist the intentional effort by the federal government to sow fear among vulnerable populations. Allies must be vocal in support for immigrants when possible, she said.

“What we say to the community is, don’t be afraid. The other team wants you to be afraid. They want to impose psychological suffering, so don’t bite,” she said. “We got your back, your church has your back, people at school where your kids go have your back. We’re all there for you.”

Businesses mum on ICE visits

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said he has not heard any reports of ICE raids in Pima County. Typically ICE would give the Sheriff’s Department a “courtesy” heads up on those kinds of operations, he said.

But he said community members aren’t imagining things: There likely have been more ICE arrests since Trump took office, he said. With the passage of the Laken Riley Act, requiring agents to prioritize detention of shoplifters, ICE pursuit of misdemeanor offenders is sure to increase, he said.

“Am I getting a sense that things (enforcement activities) are picking up? I’m sure they are,” he told the Star on Monday. “The feds have their marching orders. With these decrees, they’re probably stepping it up.”

Rumors of a “raid” at El Con’s Home Depot on Jan. 26 are false, Nanos said, but ICE did arrest a man there whom they had already been tracking. Home Depot’s parking lot is where agents caught up to him, Nanos said.

Rumors of an ICE presence at Sahuarita Middle School last week are also false, district spokeswoman Amber Woods told the Star Monday.

But Jaramillo says she’s confirmed at least one ICE operation she describes as a “raid,” although the Star could not independently verify her account. Last Friday, Jaramillo said she received a report of five ICE vehicles surrounding a South Tucson bakery and immediately went there. She talked to workers and the business owner, who was still distraught. (He declined a request to speak with the Star.)

The business owner “was shaking and couldn’t speak clearly when I was talking to him,” she said. He said ICE agents entered the business and asked for immigration paperwork for all workers there. The workers did not respond and directed agents to the business owner, whom ICE agents gave an I-9 audit form, requiring he verify the status of all employees within three days, Jaramillo said.

Agents did arrest one employee there, who probably had a deportation order and was the intended target, Jaramillo said. ICE was likely hoping for “collateral” arrests of people nearby, she said.

“It was a raid as we know it in the activism field,” she said. “But we are seeing a lot of the reports (of ICE activity) do seem to be targeted against immigrants with deportation orders or immigrant arrests. But the only way ICE is going to be able to meet their daily quotas is by asking for the citizenship status of anyone in the vicinity.”

The Trump administration has imposed a daily quota on ICE of more than 1,000 arrests nationwide, or 75 arrests per each of the agency’s field offices, the Washington Post reported.

To maintain those kinds of numbers, ICE agents will have to widen their net to target people without criminal records, said Michael Kagan, immigration law professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

“They’re gonna run out of people who have even parking tickets,” he said.

Getting an accurate sense of the level of ICE activity locally is a challenge: Some small businesses in Tucson haven’t wanted to acknowledge visits from ICE, Jaramillo said, not only for fear of scaring away customers or inviting more scrutiny, but also to stay off the radar of white supremacists, who she said have been emboldened since Trump’s election.

Advocates say they are trying to balance keeping the community informed, while protecting immigrants’ and allies’ mental well-being.

As volunteer activists, with full-time jobs, too, “We’re experiencing the secondary trauma,” Jaramillo said. “All of us are having problems sleeping. At 5 in the morning, the alerts are going off, the text messages are going off, and we’re not resting.”

Carlos, a 19-year-old asylum seeker from Venezuela, is in the country legally awaiting his family’s asylum hearing, but he’s still worried he could be deported since the Trump administration has said it will go after asylum seekers.

“They say one thing and then they say another. We don’t know what’s the truth and what’s a lie,” said Carlos, speaking in Spanish. He asked the Star only to use his first name due to his fear of being detained.

Carlos said his wife, who is seven months pregnant, is afraid to go to the hospital, since ICE now can make arrests there. She and her 10-year-old daughter from a previous relationship don’t leave the house now, but Carlos has to go out for work, he said.

“I’m afraid they’ll take me away from my family,” he said. “I’m not a bad person. I go to work and go home. Thank God I don’t have any vices, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. But they could grab me for anything.”

‘Deportation theater’

In fiscal year 2024, the Biden administration deported 271,000 people, more than any fiscal year since 2014, according ICE’s most recent annual report. But most of those deported were new arrivals apprehended by border agents at the southern border, rather than in the interior of the country.

Biden deported about 50,000 people from the interior of the country each year of his term, and arrested 170,0000 in 2023, averaging about 465 daily arrests, Kagan said.

Kagan said while Trump may be legitimately scaling up interior enforcement — he said it remains to be seen if ICE can maintain daily arrests close to 1,000 — his administration is also relying heavily on public relations.

“There’s high likelihood of ‘deportation theater’ where nothing has changed, this is an arrest Biden would have made, but they’re putting out a splashier press release,” he said.

Former talk show host “Dr. Phil” even tagged along with “border czar” Tom Homan on ICE raids on Sunday, he said.

Another version of deportation theater aims to “create a distorted impression about who is being deported,” suggesting more deportees are dangerous criminals than the reality, through vaguely worded press releases, Kagan said.

Trump officials have falsely suggested all immigrants without legal status in the U.S. are “criminals.” While crossing the border without authorization is a misdemeanor on the first attempt, merely being present in the U.S. without legal status is a civil violation, not criminal, immigration experts say.

Jaramillo of Coalición de Derechos Humanos said the community could use more vocal support, and more detailed guidance, from local leaders.

“Our immigrants are living in fear. It feels like they’re terrorizing our immigrant communities, and I’m not seeing the response” from local leaders, she said. “All the work that is happening is being done by us activists for free, by us volunteers.”

The office of Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said she was unavailable for an interview with the Star Monday or Tuesday. But a Monday joint statement from city leaders emphasized that the Tucson Police Department’s general orders say “enforcement of immigration violations arising out of a person’s unauthorized presence in the United States is reserved for federal agencies, and is not part of the mission of TPD.”

Nanos has also emphasized that sheriff’s deputies are not doing immigration enforcement. If members of the public see local deputies alongside border agents or ICE vehicles in the field, they are there either due to a partnership on something like a drug case, or to support agent safety, he said.

Jaramillo said local police or deputies’ proximity to immigration enforcement activities will sow distrust in local law enforcement, especially now.

“Right now is not the time, given the fear of our community, to send our local law enforcement to do any type of collaboration with Border Patrol,” she said.