A local Latino organization has taken action to protect its community against ICE. The effort started before the widespread reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Lane County this month. 

On Nov. 5, several people were reportedly detained by ICE in Eugene and Cottage Grove. Eugene Weekly reported that the detainees were taken to Tacoma, Washington, where the Northwest ICE Processing Center is located. 

On Nov. 19, at least 15 people were detained by ICE in Eugene, according to Joel Iboa, founding executive director of Oregon Just Transition Alliance, a movement uniting people working against climate change, environmental racism and economic exploitation. 

The exact number of people detained by ICE in both events is still unclear.

Comunidad y Herencia Cultural, a nonprofit serving the Latino community, has partnered with the Community De-Escalation Team and Community Rainbow Guard to keep members of the organization safe from ICE during community events.

Antonio Huerta, director of Comunidad y Herencia Cultural, says it was important to build an alliance with the safety teams.

“The transgender and queer community is going through a similar situation as the Latino immigrant community right now, so I thought it was important to build allyship and support,” Huerta says. “I think, given everything that is going on right now, or at least from my perspective, it is important to build allyship with white people that have a lot more privilege and power than Brown people.”  

The Community De-Escalation Team started as an offshoot of the Activist Coalition of Eugene Springfield. Its mission, says Chuck Areford, a volunteer and original member of the Community De-Escalation Team, is to “keep people calm or to calm them down when they get upset or agitated” at rallies or protests.

“So we’re committed to nonviolence,” he says.

The Community Rainbow Guard developed as an offshoot of the Pride Rainbow Guard, says Naphtali Renshaw, co-founder of the Community Rainbow Guard. The queer-led and rooted organization began monitoring community activities in April after being invited to two Pink Proms, an annual event hosted by Queer Eugene where teens and youth members of the LGTBQ+ community are celebrated.

“They had received some threats from agitators that they had threatened to come and disrupt the event,” Renshaw says. So several community members “came to the event and stayed around and kept an eye out for any agitators, so that we could intercept and make sure that the kids stayed indoors if they needed to and that we could deduce any agitation outside.”

After surveilling those two events, Renshaw says the Community Rainbow Guard expanded its work to community-based cultural events, including Noche Cultural, hosted July 19 by Comunidad y Herencia Cultural, celebrating the history, traditions and folklore of Mexico.

Huerta adds that “capacity” was a main reason why he wanted both teams to be at the Noche Cultural event. “Having them there, it was very very helpful for us in the sense that more eyes or more witnesses should something happen,” he says.

Areford says the De-Escalation Team’s main duty at cultural events, including the ones hosted by Comunidad y Herencia Cultural, is to keep a lookout for ICE and serve as a warning system.

“We’re often out in the parking lots — that’s where we do our main patrolling around the parking lots. We may be at other places too in the event,” Areford says.

He adds that both teams will carry “walkie-talkies to radio-communicate with each other and with Antonio [Huerta]. At some of the events Antonio has his own security, and so we will work with them.”

Apart from using walkie talkies, both teams, which consist of around 12 volunteers, wear vests to be visible to the community. Their visibility, Areford says, brings a feeling of safety to those in attendance. 

Huerta agrees and says he believes that people also appreciate both teams’ presence. 

Areford adds, “Of course, we’re being friendly and greeting people and talking to people.”

Should ICE show up to an event, “We would just witness,” Areford says. “We would help try to keep people from panicking. We can’t interfere with ICE directly.” Community Rainbow Guard does the same.

According to Renshaw, the Community Rainbow Guard has seen a rise in requests for surveillance of community-based events. “Up until April, Rainbow Guard has been at Pride and Pride-related events within our network. In April, when we were asked to cover the two Pink Prom events, that’s really when it started,” Renshaw says. There was an event in late May or June, and then the group began covering events at the Springfield Library. By September or October, they had multiple weekends where there were two requests a week, and, Renshaw says, “I did have one weekend where we had three requests.”

Renshaw says they expect requests to increase. Some Latino participants in previous events with Huerta’s group tell Eugene Weekly they are no longer participating in upcoming holiday events and parades due to the ICE raids.

“Our most frequent requests are for Latinx communities right now being targeted physically,” Renshaw says. “But I expect that we will continue to have requests from other cultural organizations [as] rhetoric amps up across the nation.”

Find more information on the Community Rainbow Guard at CommunityRG@proton.me. To learn about the work of Comunidad y Herencia Cultural or donate go to NocheCultural.com.