Shiori Akimoto, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant legal services manager, poses for a photo inside UC Berkeley’s Jhonston Hall, where EBSC has been holding workshops to assist Salvadoran locals with their applications for the federal Temporary Protected Status program. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight LocalShiori Akimoto, manager of the immigration legal services program at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, remembers working as a migrant advocate eight years ago when this country first elected Donald Trump for president.
It was November 2016 when she led a “know-your-rights” workshop for the Berkeley community at Longfellow Middle School. The session was packed with advocates, educators, parents and community members. But when advocates hosted similar events in November after Trump was reelected, the same energy wasn’t present.
“It was so quiet, and it was not much of a surprise factor this time,” Akimoto said.
The phones weren’t ringing like they did nearly a decade ago, and she wasn’t receiving an influx of panicked text messages. “This time it’s going to be much worse,” she said of a second Trump administration. “But people maybe weren’t grasping it.”
But things changed once Trump began his term in January and it became clear that he intended to make good on his campaign promises to increase deportations. Fear and anger over the administration’s words and actions grew, resulting in demonstrations in the Bay Area, including in Berkeley last month.
“With all the executive orders, people are actually freaking out. We’re getting a lot of calls,” Akimoto said.
Across California, members of the immigrant community are on alert following confirmed raids in Kern County and in San Jose, in addition to various unconfirmed reports on social media.
In Berkeley, the city council and the school board recently reaffirmed sanctuary protections for members of migrant communities. The city urged the city attorney to provide legal support for undocumented immigrants, and Berkeley Unified vowed to not aid enforcement. UC Berkeley and the University of California also pledged to support its undocumented student population. And the Berkeley Police Department promised in late January to uphold these protections.
Despite the actions of local officials to create safeguards, the threat of mass deportations is causing some members of the Berkeley immigrant community to change their routines and think twice about showing up in public or accessing community services as they normally would, according to local advocates.
Mirna Cervantes is the executive director of the Multicultural Institute, a local nonprofit founded in West Berkeley in the early 1990s. The organization has expanded to serve over 3,000 people in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Mateo counties. The institute operates weekly food distribution and a clothing closet, and offers vocational and educational programs.
One of those is an after school mentoring program mostly composed of Latino and Asian students, where Cervantes said participation has ebbed in recent weeks; some students are going less and others have stopped showing up altogether. Families are afraid of being out in the afternoon, and some have stopped taking their children to school due to fears of encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), she said.
Friday morning, Cervantes’ colleague checked a stretch of Ashby Avenue in Berkeley following reports from community members of immigration enforcement officials on that street. The reports appeared to be unfounded.
“We’re making sure that we’re going to verify what’s actually happening because we don’t want to cause more fear than what’s already out there,” Cervantes said. “We’re not new to this. We did it in 2017, 2018, and we will continue to build off of that.”
College students in mixed-status families are also wary
Cal students walk through campus at the end of a two-hour rally to protest the Trump administration’s migration policies and immigration raids across the country, on January 29, 2025. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/ CatchLight LocalUC Berkeley freshman Miria Pastor is a first-generation student with family from Guatemala. Her parents have been in the U.S. for more than two decades. Pastor was involved in advocacy in her hometown Los Angeles, and wants to continue that in Berkeley.
Pastor said that she and many other college students and families in her community were anxious this semester about applying for federal financial aid, which requires sharing personal information — including immigration status — with the government. “They’ll (ICE) come to your house; you just never know,” she heard community members say.
When Pastor was in kindergarten, ICE raided a home on her family’s street. Despite that memory, Pastor and her mother decided to risk it this year and apply for federal financial aid because paying the tuition on their own wasn’t a realistic alternative.
Pastor said her mother told her that she was willing to be arrested, if it would mean her daughter could attend university.
“My mom says, ‘If they take me, that’s OK,’ ” said Pastor.
Stephanie, a UC Berkeley sophomore from a mixed-status family in Contra Costa County, said people in her community have become more cautious. She asked that Berkeleyside only publish her first name, as a precaution.
Keeping up with the news is draining, Stephanie said, and it’s upsetting knowing her family’s safety is at stake. Whenever she sees a report of a raid or other activity, she sends it to her loved ones, whether it’s confirmed or not, because you never know.
“We’re not sure what’s true or not,” she said. “If we don’t have to go out, we’d rather stay home.”
Fear of ICE disrupts school and church routines
A poster inside the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant office in South Berkeley decries the family separations that occurred as a result of immigration enforcement during Donald Trump’s first administration. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight LocalSaint Joseph the Worker Roman Catholic Church in Central Berkeley has long been a gathering place for Latino and immigrant residents. The Sunday morning mass at 8 a.m. is held in Spanish by Rev. Alberto Perez-Aguayo, originally from Mexico.
At the end of the service, flyers with information about mutual aid and legal resources were passed around.
Daniela, an immigrant mother of two, attended with her children. That morning, she had considered skipping the in-person service. She asked that Berkeleyside only use her first name, for fear of being identified.
A few weeks ago, she said rumors about ICE being present near Silvia Mendez Elementary School sent families there, including her own, into a panic. Daniela stayed home that day and sent her daughter, a Berkeley High student, to pick her brother up from school. Following the incident, the school sent an email dispelling the rumors, but the fear persisted.
Before Trump’s second inauguration, Daniela said she felt nervous but not afraid in Berkeley, given the city’s sanctuary status. Her relatives in Nevada, she thought, had more reason to worry.
Although the rumors of ICE at her son’s schools turned out to be untrue, for Daniela, the episode was a reflection of the heightened insecurity being felt by immigrants in Berkeley. Still, she was heartened by the community’s response.
“The bright light was the school reaction,” she said.
Afterward, she said the school created a WhatsApp group to keep families informed and connected. School staff assured parents they would be informed of any ICE activity and that immigration officials would not be allowed to enter without a warrant.
School isn’t the only aspect of life that’s been disrupted, said Daniela. “We are going outside less and less. Today, we came to church with fear.”
Others did not come out at all, judging by the number of people who attended the day’s service. “The middle aisle is always packed,” Daniela said, observing the parishioners lining up to receive communion. But not that morning.
‘They’re going to come after us really hard.’
Akimoto, herself an immigrant, has been working with East Bay Sanctuary Covenant for over a decade. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight LocalThough fears and anxiety have risen in the immigrant community, so has advocacy. And this time, Akimoto said, the community has more resources to address these concerns.
“There are many more organizations that are engaged,” she said. “But it is difficult because it’s already evident that this time they’re going to come after us really hard.”
Akimoto immigrated to the U.S. from Japan when she was 22 years old. Her student visa expired and she became undocumented until she obtained a green card in 2007. She now has residency status, and uses her knowledge and personal experience to help others in similar situations.
“They’re asking, ‘What do I do?’” Akimoto said about the increasing number of clients at East Bay Sanctuary Covenant. “And it’s really hard to answer because it depends on their situation, and all those questions require individual consultations — but we are trying.”
Ximena Natera and Joanne Furio contributed reporting to this story.
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