Neighbors Taken by ICE Spark Grassroots Resistance in Pasadena

Elizabeth Castillo was not an activist until Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began detaining her neighbors.

The situation escalated in June after a directive from then-President Donald Trump ordered ICE agents to conduct widespread sweeps in Los Angeles. These actions were later used to justify deploying the military in response to isolated violent incidents during protests against immigration enforcement tactics. Castillo felt that her working-class Pasadena neighborhood, just outside Los Angeles, was under siege. She recounted that six people were detained at Winchell’s donut shop, and ICE also arrested two individuals during a raid at her apartment complex.

“It was chaos,” she recalled. “You could see it, hear it, and feel the fear and intimidation. The terror was palpable.”

Castillo, a petite woman with long dark hair, is a U.S.-born daughter of Mexican immigrants and appears younger than her 38 years. She is a mother of five children—two adults and three still living at home. Before the ICE crackdown, she kept up with the news and voted regularly, but her children and healthcare administration job occupied most of her time. “You know, it was all about practice sessions here and there,” she said. “’Mom, pick me up.’ ‘Mom, let me do this.’”

Her motivation to act stems from firsthand experience with the consequences of deportation. In 2012, when her children were under ten, her husband—born in Mexico but raised in the United States—was deported. At the time, Castillo was a full-time student, and he was the family’s sole breadwinner. She had to leave school and explain to her children why their father could no longer live with them. “I understand what that means for a family,” she said. This summer, as ICE began detaining members of her community from the streets, she felt compelled to respond.