Tag Archives: immigration

Civil Liberties, Fascism, Immigrant Rights, Low Wage workers, Organizing, Pittsburgh, Racism, Right Wing, Solidarity, trump

On The Ground With The Volunteers Tracking ICE Across The Pittsburgh Region

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A group of people and a dog stand in a circle, talking, in a parking lot at night in front of a strip mall.
Jaime Martinez, community defense organizer at Casa San José, coordinates with Rapid Response Network volunteers outside Emiliano’s Mexican Restaurant in Gibsonia on June 17, after reports that federal agents were idling nearby in unmarked vehicles.

Casa San José has trained hundreds of volunteers to monitor and respond to immigration enforcement. Public Source followed them through raids, courthouse watches and late-night calls.

Avatar photoBy Quinn Glabicki

Public Source

July 31, 2025 – As federal immigration enforcement intensifies across the country, a local response has quickly scaled up across the Pittsburgh region. In Beechview, the nonprofit Casa San José has built a Rapid Response Network of trained volunteers who monitor and document ICE activity across Allegheny County and beyond.

The network launched during the first Trump administration but has ramped up since January. As of July 30, it includes more than 250 trained volunteers — with nearly 175 more signed up for future training.

Lea este artículo en español aquí.

Casa San José, founded in 2013, focuses on immigrant rights and the Pittsburgh region’s Latino community — a mission amplified as the Trump administration rolls back protections for immigrants and directs federal resources toward a crackdown and mass deportations.

Organizers traverse city neighborhoods, gather in church basements and empty parking lots, and educate residents about their rights and federal immigration tactics. Along with trained volunteers, who are prepared to legally observe, document and accompany people at risk of being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE], they respond in real time to sightings, arrests and raids.

Pittsburgh’s Public Source spent more than a month embedded with Casa San José’s organizers and volunteers, tracking their efforts from the courthouse to restaurants as they responded to immigration enforcement and supported families under threat.

Photo: June 14 at the City-County Building, Downtown 

Monica Ruiz, executive director of Casa San José, speaks to thousands of people gathered in front of the City-County Building in Downtown during a day of nationwide protest against the Trump administration.

“They are disappearing our people. This is our reality. Every single day. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. We cannot continue to allow this to happen in our communities,” said Casa San José Executive Director Monica Ruiz.

“Casa San José is the only organization on this side of the state that is doing this kind of work.” 

Ruiz said she has received five death threats since November, forcing her to relocate Casa San José’s office and to reconsider speaking publicly.

Photo: June 17 at Emiliano’s Mexican Restaurant, Gibsonia

As volunteers monitor the scene, Jaime Martinez, community defense organizer at Casa San José, speaks by phone with nine workers sheltering inside the restaurant — part of the network’s effort to document enforcement activity and support those at risk.

Sharon Bonavoglia was the first to arrive at a quiet strip mall in Gibsonia late on June 17. She had received the call because she lives nearby, and because she’s one of a growing network of volunteers responding to reports of federal immigration enforcement in and around Allegheny County.

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Civil Liberties, Immigrant Rights, Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey: ‘My Administration Will Not Work With ICE’

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WTAE

Jan 28, 2025

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said during an event in Harrisburg Monday that his administration will not work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Our news partners at the Trib said Gainey’s comments come amid heightened concerns from local immigrant communities about ICE raids.

“My administration will not work with ICE,” Gainey said during a Pennsylvania Press Club event Monday. “We will do whatever’s necessary to make our city more welcoming. That’s what we’re built on.”

President Donald Trump has issued “quotas for the immigration enforcement agency to ramp up arrests,” the Trib said, attributing the Washington Post. Trump’s remarks include enforcement at schools and other “sensitive sites.”

“ICE is not going to end the situation of a failed immigration policy — it’s not going to do it,” Gainey said. “What it’s going to do is create more situations where people feel scared, where people don’t feel safe, where people will do things that they normally wouldn’t do.

“If the federal government wants to be serious about what they want to do to reform the immigration law, then they need to create a pathway to citizenship.”

Vanessa Caruso, a Pittsburgh-based immigration attorney, told the Trib that she has been taking calls “all day, every day” from people who are worried about ICE actions.

“The concern is real,” she said to the Trib, and it’s growing as the Trump administration looks to crack down on immigration.

Gainey’s press secretary, Olga George, said in a statement to Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 on Monday evening that the city was unaware of any ICE raids.

“Currently, the city of Pittsburgh has no evidence of ICE activity occurring within city limits and has not been asked to assist the agency in any way,” the statement said. “ICE is a federal law enforcement agency that works outside of city control. Public Safety and the Bureau of Police will adhere to bureau policies.”

According to the Trib, the policy says city police are unable to arrest someone just to investigate their immigration status.

In a statement posted to the @PGHController X account on Tuesday, City Controller Rachael Heisler said, in part, “The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police has long upheld a policy of not arresting or detaining people solely to investigate immigration status. PBP officers are not immigration agents, and enforcing federal civil immigration warrants is not the job they’re trained to do.

“Pittsburgh police will follow procedure for criminal warrants regardless of immigration status. But under current PBP policy, police do not arrest or detain people based on civil immigration or administrative warrants in NCIC.”

Immigrant Rights, Right Wing, safety net, Solidarity

Trump Administration’S Mass Deportation Plan Would Hurt Pennsylvania, Immigrant Advocates Warn

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They urged Democratic lawmakers to pass legislation to make the commonwealth more welcoming

By: Peter Hall

Penncapitol-Star

Nov 14, 2024 – President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants would lead to population loss, exacerbate workforce shortages and increase tax burdens for Pennsylvania residents and businesses, the Democratic state lawmakers heard Wednesday.

Advocates for the immigrant community testified before the state House Democratic Policy Committee that although the federal government maintains exclusive authority over immigration policy, which is expected to take a draconian shift under a second Trump administration, state lawmakers can make Pennsylvania a more welcoming place.

“It’s been laid out very clearly. Unfortunately, it’s going to be immigrant detention and deportations on the horizon,” Julio Rodriguez, political director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, said. “So now it’s crucial that this legislature not only has welcoming policies to support immigrants, but to fight back against these proposals.”

The hearing on the last day of the 2023-2024 legislative session was convened by state Rep. Danilo Burgos (D-Philadelphia), who serves as chairperson of the Pennsylvania Legislative Latino Caucus.

Pennsylvania ranks fourth in the nation in population loss, Rodriguez said. In 2021, the net decrease in population between births and deaths was more than 23,000.

“We didn’t see that impact, because net international migration, also known as immigrants moving here, was 25,721,” Rodriguez said “Had it not been for immigrants, we would have seen a drastic population decline.”

A state’s population determines its number of representatives in Congress. Rodriguez noted that Pennsylvania lost one congressional seat after the 2020 census and could lose another in 2030. It would also result in Pennsylvania receiving less federal funding.

But more immediately, the loss of a portion of the commonwealth’s 978,000 immigrant residents would worsen the labor shortage in the agricultural sector, driving up grocery store prices. Undocumented workers also contribute billions in taxes and in the state’s gross domestic product, Rodriguez said.

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