With the public\u2019s outrage and attention focused on the deadly surge of federal agents in Minneapolis, immigration operations have quietly continued across the US \u2013 albeit in less noticeable but still troubling ways, advocates say.<\/p>\n
In recent weeks there have been day laborers swept up at a Home Depot in San Diego. A taco truck vendor chased<\/a> down outside a church in Los Angeles. Immigrants arrested at check-ins in North Carolina, and during traffic stops in the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n These efforts continue to stoke fear in communities and disrupt people\u2019s abilities to work, attend school or go to doctor\u2019s appointments. And in cities that have faced their own crackdown operations, raids and arrests haven\u2019t stopped even after the drawdown of federal agents, with some signs that tactics are shifting.<\/p>\n In southern California, under-the-radar arrests have continued at a fast clip in the first few weeks of 2026, activists and legal experts say.<\/p>\n Los Angeles was hit with sweeping immigration raids last summer that ground daily life to a halt<\/a>. Since then, even when many national headlines moved on, advocates say there\u2019s been a steady drumbeat of arrests.<\/p>\n Resident Shonique Williams confronts a federal agent as they investigate the scene of a reported shooting during an operation by federal immigration officers in Willowbrook, California, on 21 January. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a non-profit firm based in LA, has seen a recent spike in the number of calls to their legal resource hotline. Those callers include people who have been detained themselves, or family members and friends trying to track down detained loved ones. For the past six months, the firm received roughly 400 calls a month. But in January, that call number jumped to 546.<\/p>\n More or less, each one of those calls represents a person who has been recently detained, said Yliana Johansen-M\u00e9ndez, chief program officer for the law center.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s just less coverage of what\u2019s happening in LA,\u201d Johansen-M\u00e9ndez said. \u201cBut the truth is that we haven\u2019t really seen the number [of arrests] drop.\u201d<\/p>\n What has changed across southern California, experts say, is how quickly ICE is making those arrests. Earlier in 2025, the typical ICE tactic in LA seemed to involve setting up in one location, like a parking lot near Dodger Stadium<\/a>, and conducting operations in that general area for an extended period of time, Johansen-M\u00e9ndez said.<\/p>\n But in the last few months, she said, the tactic has felt more like \u201csmash and grab\u201d. ICE arrests now often begin and end in a matter of minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cThey just kind of show up in an area, do a sweep, grab a bunch of people, and by the time any responders can get there, they\u2019re gone,\u201d she said. \u201cSo people aren\u2019t catching it on camera. There\u2019s no time for protesters or for attorneys, or any legal observers, to show up. And so they\u2019re flying under the radar by doing it faster.\u201d<\/p>\n Adriana Jasso, a member of the activist organization Uni\u00f3n del Barrio, said that the speed of arrests is also picking up in San Diego, a region that saw immigration arrests soar between May and October of last year<\/a>. When ICE agents detained about a dozen people<\/a> near a San Diego Home Depot in late December, witnesses said the whole operation unfolded in about five minutes, Jasso said.<\/p>\n Neither ICE\u2019s San Diego field office nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to multiple questions about the speed or frequency of recent southern California arrests.<\/p>\n In Portland, Oregon, residents have been on edge ever since Trump attempted to deploy <\/a>the national guard to quell demonstrations outside an ICE facility. A federal judge ultimately blocked the deployment, but protests have persisted as federal agents continue regular immigration check-ins at the facility.<\/p>\n Tensions flared again in recent weeks after border patrol agents shot two people outside a medical facility in January, ICE agents arrested a seven-year-old and her parents as they sought emergency medical care, and federal agents teargassed thousands of people at a daytime march, including many children.<\/p>\n Federal agents arrest a protester outside an ICE facility on 5 October 2025 in Portland, Oregon. Photograph: Spencer Platt\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Immigration operations are continuing in the area, but appear to have declined since their peak last year. Alyssa Walker Keller, a coordinator for a statewide hotline and rapid response network organized by the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC), said that in January, the number of calls about detentions across the state was down to 79, half of them recorded in the first week. That is compared with roughly 1,100 calls in the second half of 2025, with roughly 300 calls each month during Operation Black Rose, enforcement operations enacted by an influx of federal agents from October through December. Detentions rose 1,500% when agents arrived in October.<\/p>\n Still, the fear is palpable.<\/p>\n \u201cThe impact on the folks who are in these vulnerable statuses, who are being targeted right now is, this is such a dramatic, such a profound sense of being hunted,\u201d said Walker Keller.<\/p>\n Many immigrants are not showing up to school or are delaying medical care, and teachers and healthcare workers are organizing to ensure people understand their rights under the constitution. Informal groups like Scrubs for Sanctuary Oregon and others have organized \u201cknow your rights\u201d training for workers and patients to build trust with their community, saying delayed medical care can lead to negative public health impacts more broadly.<\/p>\n \u201cWe function together as a community with these people, working as community members,\u201d Matthew Breeze, a Portland-area doctor of medicine, said. \u201cWe can\u2019t simply make them all fearful to engage.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a similar feeling in Charlotte, North Carolina, which was the target of a major operation in November when Customs and Border Protection descended on the diverse city<\/a> and arrested dozens of people.<\/p>\n While the snatch-and-grab arrests from street corners have stopped for the most part after CBP withdrew en masse, Andreina Malki, a spokesperson for Siembra NC, said that driving on a street in the morning remains anxiety-provoking for undocumented motorists.<\/p>\n \u201cBetween 6am and 11am in the morning, when folks are going to work, we see people being stopped by ICE,\u201d she said. Immigration officers target people in work vehicles like trucks and vans, a pattern familiar to observers across the country.<\/p>\n Siembra NC tracks immigration enforcement activities in North Carolina and receives real-time reports from residents. They maintain a map with active locations, sending messages to warn communities of ICE and CBP activity, and observers to document detentions.<\/p>\n Plenty of arrests are still taking place. For example, Malki said that detentions had increased at US Citizenship and Immigration Services or Department of Homeland Security check-in locations \u2013 offices where people in the legal immigration process have to go to fulfil their obligations. Siembra NC has received 23 calls about detentions at check-ins in Charlotte since CBP left, Malki said, adding that many people have no criminal cases against them.<\/p>\n Siembra NC received a call recently from someone whose husband, a green card holder, was detained during a check-in at the Charlotte office of GEO Group, a firm that operates federal immigration detention facilities for ICE across the country. In Charlotte, this office manages immigrants who wear ankle trackers as an alternative to detention, Malki said.<\/p>\n In the nation\u2019s capital of Washington DC, it\u2019s been six months since Donald Trump ordered<\/a> federal law enforcement and national guard onto the streets of the overwhelmingly Democratic city, with the stated purpose of fighting crime.<\/p>\n DHS officers question someone in Charlotte, North Carolina, on 16 November. Photograph: Ryan Murphy\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The August deployment doubled as an immigration enforcement<\/a> operation, one that activists and an immigrant rights\u2019 group said has resulted in indiscriminate arrests of city residents based on their skin color or occupation.<\/p>\n Immigration-related arrests surged immediately after the deployment was announced, then declined in the months that followed, data indicates, as Trump and his administration\u2019s attention turned to other cities. But immigration arrests remain elevated compared with before the campaign, as federal agents continue patrols of the city assisted by, activists say, the local police force.<\/p>\n Ever since Trump\u2019s campaign began, mutual aid networks have seen a steep increase in demand for legal referrals as well as grocery deliveries from people fearful of encountering immigration agents while shopping. Though arrests have decreased, the impacts have lingered.<\/p>\n \u201cAll these people are now in detention or have been deported, and their families have lost an income, a family member, a loved one, and they are still suffering the consequences of that,\u201d said Madhvi Bahl, a core organizer of the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, a community organization that has responded to Trump\u2019s deportation campaign. The effects will linger \u201cfor years to come\u201d, added Bahl.<\/p>\n