Asian Americans push back against ICE and Trump administration

On Tuesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided New York City’s Chinatown.

Chaotic footage shows armored trucks and violent arrests of street vendors alongside protesters. The raid comes days before early voting starts in the city’s high-profile mayoral race, in which South Asian Muslim Ugandan American candidate Zohran Mamdani leads in multiple polls, to the ire of President Donald Trump. 

Trump, whose re-election was followed by another spike in anti-Asian hate, recently directed ICE agents to target Democratic-run cities and has renewed efforts to pursue denaturalization cases. However, in some of these cities, ICE already has a strong foothold. Currently, ICE maintains more than 1,000 memorandums of agreement through its 287(g) program across 40 states, including blue-voting states like New York, Maine and Maryland. Since Trump's return to the presidency, ICE-coordinated attacks on AA+PI communities have nearly tripled.

Established under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, ICE was formally launched in March 2003 during the government’s post-Sept. 11 reorganization. Since then, the agency has been linked to the profiling of South Asians, Muslims, Sikhs, and people perceived as Middle Eastern, and has drawn criticism for violence and harm toward Asian and immigrant communities.

During Trump’s first term, deportations in New York City rose 150 percent between 2016 and 2018, with immigration court cases during that period most commonly involving Chinese (20 percent) and Indian (10 percent) nationals. In 2018, ICE also placed Yuen “Chin” Tzu, a trans man from Hong Kong, in solitary confinement at Georgia’s Irwin County Detention Center, where he remained for 19 months. According to the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, Tzu received incorrect hormone dosages and food that worsened his diabetes, leaving him with a chronic stomach condition.

The pattern persisted into President Joe Biden’s administration. During Biden’s first 100 days, ICE deported 33 Vietnamese immigrants—despite the administration’s announced deportation moratorium, quickly blocked by a Texas court, and a 2008 United States-Vietnam agreement meant to protect those who arrived in the United States before 1995 from removal. Advocates said the flight violated both promises.

Under Trump’s second term, removals have escalated further. In February, one month after he returned to the Oval Office, ICE conducted third-country removals to Costa Rica. One flight carried 135 people—many from Uzbekistan and China—with Costa Rican officials and local press reporting that about half were minors.

Advocacy groups including Stop AAPI Hate have also reported that ICE has detained and “disappeared” more than 60 Bhutanese refugees, including in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. Roughly 27 refugees were forcibly sent to Bhutan—a country that ethnically cleansed their community in the 1990s and ultimately rejected them again—while others remain in custody or missing. Community organizers in Michigan have also reported the disappearance of at least 16 Laotian and Hmong refugees.

Arrests without due process violate constitutional protections under the fifth and 14th amendments; when such arrests target speech, assembly or association, they also raise first amendment concerns. Civil liberties advocates have pointed to the case of Palestinian organizer Mahmoud Khalil, a U.S. green card holder detained on foreign policy grounds, as an example of how immigration enforcement can be used to silence dissent and restrict free expression.

This has left Asians and Asian Americans disenfranchised and, for many, in a state of rage. 

“We’re angry at what’s happening from the federal government,” says David Ryan Barcega Castro-Harris, a restorative justice educator based in southern Los Angeles. “We’re also angry at the local, city, county and state government because they’re either unwilling or unable to do much to keep us informed and protected.”

Nevertheless, Asian America, created through a patchwork of immigration stories, is fighting back.

On the ground

Across the country, immigration enforcement has recently intensified in Asian communities—alongside Black and Latinx communities, including African immigrants—through workplace raids and stepped-up check-ins. In southern California, attorneys and advocates report that Southeast Asians with long-stayed removal orders have been detained after routine ICE check-ins. The Los Angeles Times documented multiple such cases in April. Reports have also described raids on small businesses, including a June operation at a Marietta, Georgia nail salon in which federal agents arrested a dozen workers. 

In response, Asian American organizers have swung into action, providing rapid response networks that document agent activity, know-your-rights trainings, and even food distribution for high-risk individuals who do not feel safe leaving their homes.

“As a Black Filipino with a Latina partner and mixed kids, working across racial lines is just a part of who I am,” Castro-Harris says. “Getting know-your-rights training is important, but it's also important for people who are not at risk in this way to be informed about the rights of others and how we can support, protect and defend them.”

Other organizations are actively documenting incidents to support legal challenges. 

“We call on everyday AA+PI people to join the fight against Trump’s unconstitutional, xenophobic attacks on birthright citizenship and international students,” says Annie Lee, managing director of policy at Chinese for Affirmative Action and a policy co-lead for Stop AAPI Hate. “We encourage those who’ve experienced hate to submit their stories to our reporting center and to support resolutions like AJR 5, which declares California leaders’ opposition to Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship and affirms our collective right to call America home.”

Policy advocacy

On June 8, the city of Glendale formally terminated its contract with Homeland Security and ICE to house federal immigration detainees—in place since 2007—and emphasized that the Glendale Police Department “does not enforce immigration law.” The city of roughly 200,000 residents is about 13 percent Asian American, the third-largest racial cohort in the community. Officials framed the move as aligning with public safety and community trust, while noting they would continue to comply with California’s SB 54, which limits local cooperation with federal enforcement with narrow exceptions. In a press release, city council officials provided an immigration resource list in local Asian languages, including Korean, Tagalog and Armenian.

Asian American legal advocates said Glendale’s past arrangement raised SB 54 concerns and praised the termination.

“The Glendale Police Department’s prior cooperation with ICE, including its contract, raises serious concerns under California’s SB54,” Ash Alvandi, vice president of Orange County at Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California, said in a statement to Mixed Asian Media. “(It) limits local law enforcement’s entanglement with federal immigration authorities. We welcome the termination of that contract and call on all jurisdictions to ensure full compliance with state law and constitutional protections.” 

Now, Asian Americans across the country want more contracts ended. In Chicago, Asian American groups and allied coalitions—including AFIRE Chicago, a Filipinx organization—are pushing for local rollbacks of cooperation with ICE. Mayor Brandon Johnson has publicly vowed to defend the city’s sanctuary policies—“in the courts, the street and with policy”—amid escalating federal enforcement rhetoric.

“Mayor Johnson was solid in his defense of the city when the White House attacked Chicago’s sanctuary city status,” said AFIRE Chicago. “We can see a reality where City Council, with the support of Mayor Johnson, would vote in support of terminating contracts with ICE.” 

In Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu signed an executive order on June 10 directing regular Freedom of Information Act requests to ICE to obtain details on arrests and tactics—denouncing what she called “secret police tactics.” Since the order, the city has followed up with record requests.

Action items

Bronx-based Mekong NYC—an organization that supports Southeast Asians through arts and culture, community organizing and advocacy—has used gubernatorial clemency as an immigration-protection strategy. A full and unconditional state pardon can eliminate certain deportability grounds tied to a conviction under the Immigration and Nationality Act, allowing attorneys to move to reopen and sometimes terminate a removal case. However, it’s not a blanket shield against all ICE enforcement.

In collaboration with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), Mekong NYC helped secure a July 1, pardon for Somchith “Sammy” Vatthanavong, a 52-year-old Laotian refugee who arrived in the United States as a child to escape American carpet bombing across Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Advocates report the pardon enabled them to reopen his case and vacate a decades-old removal order, with proceedings terminated later that month. The pardon came the day before a scheduled ICE check-in.

In a joint statement posted to Instagram, Mekong NYC and AALDEF said, “This victory is a testament to the power of collective action…Yet even as we celebrate, the fight is far from over. These deportations are part of a broader and ongoing attack on Southeast Asian refugees, who came here after the U.S. war in our homelands. Over 15,000 Southeast Asians in the U.S. remain vulnerable to detention and deportation because of old convictions, often from their youth.” 

At-home strategies like these can be replicated across the country. In Illinois, AFIRE Chicago is pressing for state and local measures: boosting the immigrant services line item to $40 million for outreach and legal help; advancing resolutions that protect sanctuary policies and limit data-sharing with ICE; and backing federal “rolling registry” legislation—the Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929—that would let long-term residents who have lived in the United States for at least seven years apply for a green card. Policy analyses estimate about eight million people could be eligible if enacted.

“The broader Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander community is mobilizing as well,” Hannah Liu, manager of immigration advocacy at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, says. “Partner organizations are hosting weekly phone banking sessions, and many people have been contacting their elected representatives. We have been seeing AANHPIs show up in full force to speak out to prevent the rights of their communities from being stripped away.”

As Asian America continues its response to ICE, organizers are implementing aspects of disability justice leader Mia Mingus’ pod-mapping, a strategy that creates safety within the community itself. 

“What are your alert systems?” asks Castro-Harris. “What are your systems for making sure that people are informed and staying safe when raids are happening?”

Castro-Harris and others also want everyone—not just immigrants—to be fully educated on human rights and to build community as a first step in the fight against ICE. 

“Make sure that your community is ready to respond when ICE shows up,” he says. “Connect with your neighbors and community members on a person-to-person level so you know who you can trust.”