Pomona Economic Opportunity Center hosts rapid response training amid an increase in ICE raids 

On Oct. 2, over 60 students and faculty attended a rapid response training that the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center (PEOC) held at the Gold Student Center at Pitzer. Four speakers from PEOC explained how to identify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who to call, how to act, and what rights students have if ICE comes to the 5Cs. The training follows ICE’s intensified raids in Pomona and across Southern California since this summer. 

Since last May, ICE and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) have staged hundreds of raids in and around Los Angeles arresting an average of 540 people a week between May 28 and July 28. ICE and CBP have also directly targeted PEOC in the past. ICE abducted a day laborer at the Pomona Day Laborer Center on Nov. 13 and on Dec. 4 alone, ICE kidnapped at least three people and detained another. The PEOC’s instagram account has also documented countless ICE kidnappings. 

The speakers began by explaining PEOC’s history as a resource and space for day laborers. 

One PEOC presenter said, “[day] laborers [are just]  waiting for work on public spaces, right? And they will get arrested. And then they…started to do what is known as ICE transfers…So back then the community…saw this injustice and we all came together. They all came together…So this was back in 1998.”

The PEOC speaker also explained who day laborers are and what they do. 

“What is a day laborer?… They’re men that…saw the need to leave their country chasing the American dream…they’re here looking for work,” the presenter said. “A lot of them [have] their family in their native countries…[They do] general labor, construction, you know, electrical, you name it…we also have the women’s group that…do domestic work. [Most day laborers are] immigrants from Latin America, Mexico and Central America.”

PEOC was able to open their first day labor center for day laborers in Pomona, where they “observe, document, and report back” on the ICE kidnappings and ensure safe working conditions. The PEOC itself has three departments: the Worker’s Drive team, the Immigration Rights team, and the Housing Justice Team. The speakers then detailed the slow but sure expansion of the day labor centers into San Bernardino and later Rancho Cucamunga. 

A presenter outlined the harsh conditions of day laborers, stating, “[they’re] exposed to…heat and safety illnesses…[Ideally], one of our goals is.. a worker center just like the one that we have in Pomona at every corner.”

Many of the speakers work on-site with the day laborers, often from 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. As Home Depot is a popular site for the workers, ICE has been conducting raids focused in that area. The PEOC is petitioning for the public to “demand for Home Depot to create what we call safe zones, safe spaces.”

Since the second Trump administration started, the PEOC has been giving out small red “Know Your Rights” cards, which are integral when volunteering for Migra Watch and combatting ICE’s illegal kidnappings.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable entry into your home or search and seizure of your belongings without a legal warrant signed by a judge and can be used to protect people from ICE raids. 

ICE often presents administrative warrants instead of judicial warrants which are not valid and are signed only by ICE or Border Patrol officials. The speakers emphasized that ICE may only use warrants with the court’s official stamp to legally enter someone’s home. 

The red card details how to refuse law enforcement’s entry into your home with those amendments, “Based on my Fifth Amendment rights, I do not give you permission to enter my home. Based on my Fourth Amendment rights, unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge with my name on it, that you slide under the door.”

The speakers stressed that everyone should know their rights because of ICE’s illegal actions, and that this knowledge transitions into PEOC’s volunteering practices. If ICE is spotted, volunteers record the sighting and share information. While they cannot directly interfere with an ICE raid, volunteers try to “document the whole scene.”

Regular citizens can also report an ICE spotting by calling [number], and volunteers will be sent to scope out the sighting. 

The speakers explained techniques they have used in the past to identify an ICE vehicle. One such tip was that vehicles tend to be darker colored American models and will always congregate somewhere before and after a raid. Still, they warned that these identification methods are already outdated, as ICE has been developing and shifting their concealment methods. 

“The thing is…what we’re saying is pay attention to the vehicle, pay more attention to the person inside the vehicle…Track these vehicles by [looking] at who’s inside so that you don’t get caught by surprise,” a PEOC speaker said. 

One unclear factor of the raids is the police’s involvement.

“Do [we] get informed by ICE and the federal government when they conduct operations in your area?” a PEOC speaker asked. “It was found that the city kept lying to activist organizations, that [the city] actually were contacted more than 35 times that there was gonna be a raid in the city. We don’t have evidence to prove that here … But we also have suspicion that they also, maybe they’re cooperating, but we don’t know for sure, but they’re assuming because of the historical criminalization of their labor outside of Home Depot.”

During the Q&A, an attendee asked for an explanation on the 5C policy for ICE on campus, saying, “the policy’s not clear. Most of my students didn’t know about it, right?” 

Should ICE come to campus, the current school policy is to call campus security who will call the dean of the school. The speakers also emphasized that students should exercise their right to remain silent. 

In the past, there have been incidents where 5C administrators have endangered undocumented community members. Former Pomona campus President David Oxtoby’s reaction to the unionization of cafeteria workers in 2012 was to demand employees present documents authorizing them to work in the United States, sparking protests from faculty and students.

The PEOC is always open to volunteers. You can volunteer here for Migra Watch for an hour or more a week to drive around Pomona and watch for ICE. 

“Let’s really manage the fear [of ICE] as well. We’re very privileged in this campus. We will be more protected here as students, but workers are out there, right? There’s no protections [for them]. They’re really in a very vulnerable place,” the speakers concluded.

This article was published on Jan. 12, 2026 and backdated to Oct. 2, 2025 for browsing convenience