Advocacy

The Baltimore Banner – April 9, 2025
Rejected at her door, ICE nabs a Maryland woman in her car after smashing her window

The arrest was captured on camera by her daughter. That Monday started off like any other day for Karen Cruz Berrios.

The 18-year-old and her mother — Elsy Noemi Berrios, 52 — planned to ride to work together, which happened daily in the month of March. Cruz Berrios recently started as a seamstress where her mom had worked for the past five years. 

But March 31 was different for Cruz Berrios.

Read Entire Article

The Baltimore Banner – April 10, 2025
Foil blankets, no medical staff: Maryland senators call ill-equipped ICE holding rooms ‘appalling’

Maryland’s U.S. Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks decried the “appalling situation” unfolding in the holding rooms at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Baltimore Field Office in the city’s downtown.

The letter sent today to the federal secretary of homeland security and acting ICE director comes after a recent visit by the staffs of the senators. Their visits were prompted, according to the letter, by reports of “prolonged detainment, overcrowding, and inhumane conditions.”

Read Entire Article

The Baltimore Banner – July 29, 2025
Baltimore families ripped apart by ICE detentions, deportations

Most weekends, Renee takes her 7-year-old son out to distract him. There are places Alex refuses to go — certain parks, a few ice cream stores — because his father used to take him there. Every place is a memory, Renee said, and her attempt to create new ones only make the absence louder. 

At a pool on a recent Sunday, Alex saw kids playing with their fathers and began to cry. A few days later, Alex found his dad’s earring box and fell asleep clasping it, Renee said. 

“My heart breaks for him,” Renee said.

Read Entire Article

The Baltimore Banner - August 7, 2025
 Detention cells in Baltimore designed for short stays instead confine immigrants for days
 Under Trump, ICE has detained immigrants for an average of 51 hours, four times longer than the maximum time limit under its longstanding policy, data shows

They are politely called “holding rooms,” but in reality, they are cells. They sit on a higher floor of a non-descript, downtown Baltimore office building in a facility run by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

These barely furnished cells are intended, by ICE’s own guidelines, to hold men and women arrested on immigration charges for no more than 12 hours, as the detainees are processed and then sent to detention facilities as far-flung as Washington state and Louisiana.

Read Entire Article

Apple News - September 15, 2025
Trump administration offers to pay police wages in places that join immigration enforcement
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday that it would pay state and local law-enforcement officers' salaries and benefits in places where governments join a program to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

The offer, which begins October 1, would also provide up to 25% of an officer's salary in overtime costs and bonuses to agencies based on performance, DHS said.
President Donald Trump's administration aims to deport record numbers of immigrants in the U.S. illegally and has intensified enforcement across the country.
The Republican-led Congress in July passed a spending package that gave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement $75 billion over a little more than four years, a funding surge that ICE plans to use to ramp up operations.
Read Complete Article