Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested hundreds of people across the United States for filming deportation raids, according to reports from immigrant rights organizations - a systematic crackdown on transparency that has sent shockwaves through Latin American communities from Los Angeles to New York.
The arrests represent a deliberate strategy to prevent documentation of ICE operations, advocates say. Those detained face charges ranging from obstruction of federal officers to interference with law enforcement - charges that carry potential jail time and, for non-citizens, deportation themselves.
"They want us blind," said one community organizer in Los Angeles who declined to be named for fear of retaliation. "They know when there are cameras, when there is evidence, they have to answer for what they do. So they're making cameras illegal."
The crackdown comes as the Trump administration has accelerated deportation operations across the country. ICE raids in immigrant neighborhoods have become increasingly aggressive, with agents conducting what civil rights lawyers describe as "fishing expeditions" - stopping anyone who appears Latino to check documentation.
For Latin American communities, the ability to film ICE operations has been a critical protection. Video evidence has exposed cases of mistaken identity, improper detention, family separations, and use of excessive force. Social media networks allow communities to warn each other about ICE presence in real time - a digital defense system now under assault.
The legal basis for the arrests remains murky. First Amendment advocates argue that filming police and federal agents in public is constitutionally protected. But ICE claims that filming "interferes" with operations and creates safety risks for agents - an argument courts have yet to fully adjudicate in the immigration enforcement context.
The impact ripples across borders. Families in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and beyond rely on these videos to know what happened to their relatives who disappear into ICE custody. Without documentation, people vanish into the deportation system without trace.
Brazil's Folha de S.Paulo reported the arrests as evidence of what it called "the criminalization of solidarity" - making it illegal not just to shelter undocumented immigrants, but even to witness their removal.
Twenty countries, 650 million people, and millions more in the diaspora. When Washington makes it a crime to bear witness, it's not just attacking transparency - it's attacking the families trying to protect themselves. Somos nuestra propia historia - but they're trying to erase the evidence we ever existed.
