Volunteer Witnesses Are Key to Defending Immigrant Rights
Donald Trump is trying to criminalize the practice of volunteers accompanying immigrants to their court proceedings. Why? Because it works to prevent rights violations. The best way for citizens to show up for noncitizens is to literally show up.
Volunteers accompanying migrants in immigration court slows down the deportation process. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)
On June 17, 2025, New York City comptroller Brad Lander, at that time a mayoral candidate, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Lander was engaged in the process of immigrant accompaniment, which is when humanitarian supporters accompany immigrants to their court proceedings. Their presence can throw sand in the system’s gears and slow down deportations. Donald Trump’s second administration is criminalizing this practice precisely because they know it works.
In researching my book The Politics of Sanctuary, I spent years during Trump’s first term observing activists who practice immigrant accompaniment, trying to understand its mechanics and effectiveness. “We can stop or slow down the deportation process,” said one volunteer with the New Sanctuary Coalition (NSC), an organization dedicated to assisting migrants and asylum seekers. The Trump administration has moved to punish nonprofits and faith-based groups that engage in sanctuary practices like accompaniment, alleging that they promote and facilitate immigration law violations.
“The judges know us, ICE knows us. They fear us,” the NSC volunteer continued. “They have blocked us [from accompaniments], but we will keep going. We show up to doctors’ appointments, to family court, to lawyers’ appointments, [and] to Varick Street,” where New York City’s immigration court is located.
The volunteer was not bluffing about the effectiveness of the accompaniment strategy. I observed numerous cases where NSC volunteers accompanying immigrants slowed down the deportation process. The volunteers I observed were mostly native-born, white, female New Yorkers, ranging from middle-aged to senior citizens. Their presence was critical for the success of migrants’ cases. At times they were a silent presence at ICE check-ins and case hearings, while at other times they were vocal in their advocacy. “We are literally standing at that line and making sure that we hold that line and enforce rights,” one volunteer told me.
During Trump’s first term, migrant advocates sought to counter the administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric with evidence that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. These efforts did not completely reverse public opinion, which carried Trump to a second victory on an even more anti-immigrant platform in 2024. However, activism during the first Trump term did bring citizens and noncitizens together at demonstrations and protests, strengthening the movement for migrant rights. Many citizens developed political consciousness during this period and dedicated themselves to sanctuary practices like accompaniment — practices that continue to this day, often led by faith-based organizations.
These citizen activists didn’t just sympathize with immigrants but felt they had a duty to defend them. This sense of responsibility led many to 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan to support migrants attending ICE appointments. Living near immigrant neighborhoods, having immigrant friends, and believing that New York City’s institutions could be pushed to protect migrants all contributed to their support. The immigrants involved in these networks, meanwhile, saw themselves not as criminals but as tentative residents whose rights were being violated — a perspective that grew stronger through their participation in sanctuary practices. Their own activism challenged the idea that migrants are simply victims of an exploitative economic system.
Cities as Battlegrounds for Citizenship
Sanctuary practices in cities create space for undocumented people, asylum seekers, and refugees to engage in political struggle. But they can’t do it alone: their effectiveness depends on building alliances with citizens and permanent residents who join these struggles with practices like accompaniment and acts of civil disobedience. It is precisely this solidarity that the Trump administration is seeking to criminalize.
Nor can migrants claim rights without the dedicated assistance of sympathetic political leaders. Many of them lack the right to vote; the New York Court of Appeals ruled six to one in March 2025 that the state constitution requires citizenship for voting. Systematically barred from the formal representational political process, they must rely instead on voluntary action from political figures — actions like Lander’s arrest as a mayoral candidate during an accompaniment action.
Trump has made outright threats to defund sanctuary cities (though only small percentages of budgets would actually be affected). He has also threatened to expand the criminalization of immigrants, which city administrations have resisted by refusing police cooperation with ICE. These words have turned into violent acts against protesters and political representatives seen as obstructing ICE enforcement.
Trump’s threats against grassroots sanctuary efforts serve to heighten racial hostilities, scapegoat immigrants, manufacture emergencies, and instill fear in immigrants to keep them from using social and health services. Meanwhile, urban disinvestment and austerity programs are creating a false sense of scarcity for which immigrants are held responsible. Amid urban inequality, blaming immigrants can mask the lack of real solutions for urban problems like affordable housing, high-functioning social services, accessible transit, and so on.
Trump’s executive orders earlier this year intensified threats to sanctuary jurisdictions by calling to cut federal funding, penalize the granting of public benefits, and target local officials for prosecution. Federal courts largely blocked these measures as unconstitutional, and cities continue to fight the policy in court. They must continue to put up a fight, as sanctuary practices represent an essential part of the struggle for migrant rights and indeed all human rights.
The sanctuary movement offers migrants more than simply hope that they won’t be deported. It provides concrete assistance toward the goal of avoiding deportation. Of course, getting migrants to participate in sanctuary practices becomes difficult in a climate of heightened fear amid stepped-up deportations. This makes the participation of native-born activists all the more necessary to create conditions of safety and solidarity. Only when migrants and nonmigrants stand together can they thwart Trump’s anti-migrant agenda.