It’s no secret to Claudia Rosales and the Pioneer Valley Workers Center (PVWC) that fear among the immigrant community has peaked since President Donald Trump took office for his second term and immigration enforcement skyrocketed.
They see and feel it every day, but it is not slowing them down, as the center works to support immigrants by providing training and resources.
That fear was felt just two weeks ago, when the PVWC confirmed that four Hampden County residents were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Or, as the center calls it when someone gets detained, they “disappeared,” often taken with little trace.
“Right now, our community is paralyzed by fear,” Rosales, PVWC’s executive director, said in an interview with the Gazette. Rosales, a Spanish-speaking immigrant from El Salvador, had a translator for her interview.
The Springfield-based nonprofit, founded in 2014, says it is busier now than at any point in its history. As ICE activity surges in the region and across the state, the center is visiting farms, dispatching volunteers to suspected immigration arrests through a new statewide hotline and working with the ACLU to keep detained immigrants in Massachusetts.
PVWC is in the midst of a six-month-long fundraising campaign, titled “Defending our Own: Defendiendo a los Nuestros,” started officially on Labor Day this year and will conclude at the beginning of December. So far, more than $100,000 has been raised, to help the group continue its work.
The center relies primarily on donations and private partnerships, funding salaries, services such as farm visits and other various work. In total, the center has eight employees, not including membership.
The fear described by Rosales is felt by a farmworker the Gazette is calling Alejandro Garcia, a pseudonym. The worker’s name and the farm’s location are being withheld at the request of the farm owner, who said they “don’t want ICE coming here.”
On farm visits like this, PVWC members bring food, drinks and supplies for the farmworkers while inviting them to the center’s meetings to learn more, including what to do in detainment situations. They also inform the workers of their basic rights.
“A lot of people are living their lives in fear, whether they are documented or undocumented,” Garcia said in an interview with the Gazette, also through a translator.
Garcia said Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021 was bad for the immigrant community, but his second term has been “terrible.”
The farm owner said no detainments have occurred there, but he knows of neighboring farms where workers have been detained. “The people (workers) that aren’t born here are more nervous,” the farm owner said, adding that many have worked on his farm for more than 20 years.
Though times have been more difficult in recent years for the PVWC, Rosales said the center is strongest during moments like this, when more people organize and the immigrant community “takes their power back.”
“Pioneer Valley Workers Center defends the rights of immigrants. We empower immigrants, educate people about their rights, and our own people raise their voices to defend one another and protect one another,” Rosales said.
Rosales said funding is more important now than ever to help the center continue its work. While the center has mainly focused on preventing detainments the past year and a half, farm visits like the one members went on last week are one of several PVWC initiatives. Garcia said the visit showed the workers that there are people and organizations here to help.
Funding cuts, detainment surges
Just last week, President Trump slashed nearly $1 billion in federal funding for immigrant services and diversity-focused initiatives, mostly targeting Health and Human Services programs that serve refugees and unaccompanied minors accused of being in the country illegally, according to the Associated Press.
Cuts were also made to a Department of Education program for migrant students and a Department of Justice office focused on reducing racial tensions, among others.
PVWC’s Associate Director Ariana Keigan said there were three main surges in ICE activity in the Valley in 2025, specifically during March, May and September. Surges are time spans when agents are deployed to a specific area to arrest as many people as possible, she said.
The PVWC observed another surge in Hampden County just last week. The same surge was felt more broadly across the state, specifically in New Bedford and Fall River, Keigan said.
The center, with ties throughout the Valley, responded after last year’s immigration surges by collaborating with similar organizations across Massachusetts to establish LUCE, a statewide defense hotline and resource center for reporting ICE activity.
If someone believes they witnessed ICE activity, Keigan urges them to call the LUCE hotline as soon as possible: 617-370-5023. Then, workers from LUCE and PVWC jump into action and go to the scene of the suspected activity to de-escalate the situation and document what happened. These workers, whom the center calls “verifiers,” attempt to figure out who is being detained, by what entity and where they are going.
Keigan said it is difficult to track where someone goes once they are detained by ICE.
“The goal is creating a statewide unwavering system of defense, dignity and rights for our immigrant community,” Rosales said about the network.
Javier Luengo-Garrido, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts’ deputy field director for regional engagement, said it is important for immigrants to know their rights if they are detained.
Since immigration cases are seen as a civil violation rather than a criminal one, Luengo-Garrido said immigrants are not read their Miranda rights when being detained.
“Something people tend to think is that anytime you are detained, your Miranda rights would be read to you, but that’s not the case for a civil rights violation,” Luengo-Garrido said in an interview with the Gazette.
In the case of a detainment, Luengo-Garrido said the main rights people should keep in mind include the right to remain silent; the right to deny entry to private property without a judicial warrant or consent; the right to record law enforcement activity; and access to an attorney and a phone call.
Another important process is filing federal habeas corpus petitions, which the ACLU often pursues, Luengo-Garrido said.
The petitions challenge the lawfulness of a detention and delay someone being transferred to another facility. Luengo-Garrido said the only Massachusetts immigrant detention facility that ICE contracts with is the Plymouth County Correctional Facility, but it only has a section for male detainees. That means female detainees are likely to be transferred out of state.
Habeas corpus filings do not always stop a deportation, but they do can stop relocations to other detention centers and delay the process, which is exactly what happened with a 58-year-old female PVWC worker.
Two weeks ago, Keigan said the worker was detained and released after a habeas petition was filed on her behalf, but she will still be deported along with her 7-year-old daughter. Keigan declined to give her name, since legal proceedings are ongoing and out of respect for the woman’s family.
Other PVWC initiatives
The ACLU works with the PVWC on a number of initiatives, including know-your-rights trainings and helping immigrants secure driver’s licenses. Luengo-Garrido said the ACLU also helps immigrant families prepare a file of all relevant documents to have on hand, an important measure if a detainment occurs.
Another PVWC initiative includes the Youth Action Committee: “Obreros del Futuro.” Rosales said the Youth Action Committee is made up of numerous high schoolers, students and children involved in the PVWC.
“Many of the youth are the voices for undocumented parents right now because fear is paralyzing many parents, but the youth are mobilizing,” Rosales said.
While the center has spent the last two years primarily focusing on decreasing detainments, it has always strived to support and inform all kinds of workers — farm, factory and restaurant workers — of labor rights such as fair compensation and safe and clean working environments.
Cristina Mateo, a PVWC organizer, got involved after working on a farm for up to 70 hours some weeks, with no overtime pay. Farmworkers are exempt from overtime under federal and state law.
“As immigrants, it’s critical that we get paid overtime,” Mateo said through a translator. “I understand that not all farms are the same and that there are people who do value farmworkers, but it’s really important that everybody is aware of the key issues facing farmworkers.”
Rosales added that the economy is difficult right now — food and rent prices are high, and many workers have lost their healthcare. In the midst of a changing climate, Rosales said severe weather events particularly impact farmworkers by preventing them from working and getting paid.
“When crops are destroyed by flooding or really high heat temperatures, that impacts workers who can’t go to work, and that in turn, impacts their families,” Rosales said.
To learn more about the PVWC, visit pvworkerscenter.org. To donate to its current fundraising campaign, visit bit.ly/defendiendo.
Clarification, October 2, 2026 3:08 pm: This article was edited to clarify that there were three ICE surges in 2025, rather than two, and to correct the link to the Defending our Own: Defendiendo a los Nuestros campaign.
