A high-profile immigration enforcement action by Border Patrol agents July 17 on a Home Depot in South Sacramento resulted in at least nine arrests, with at least eight believed to be undocumented people.
On the same day as that raid, a coalition of local nonprofits announced a new response to increased immigration enforcement being conducted by the Trump administration across California.
The Sacramento Regional Immigrant Support and Empowerment (RISE) Hub provides legal services, rapid response help and community education to local immigrants. Organizers say the initiative has been in the works since Trump took office.
The hub covers a six-county area; Sacramento, Placer, Sutter, Yolo, Yuba and El Dorado counties. It is also part of a statewide network of hubs supported by the California Department of Social Services.
The Sacramento RISE Hub is composed of several local nonprofits — Opening Doors, Council on American-Islamic Relations Sacramento Valley, the California Immigration Project, La Familia Counseling Center and NorCal Resist.
Jessie Mabry is the CEO of Opening Doors, which supports immigrants, refugees and survivors of trafficking. She spoke with Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez about the RISE Hub, as well as how immigrant communities across the Sacramento region are feeling.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
How does the RISE Hub differ from the services that Opening Doors already provides?
What we're up against at this moment is so incredibly big. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was just passed will increase ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] funding by 13 times, so we're really at a moment where we all need to come together. This is very much an approach of being much much stronger when we come together in coalition and partnership.
We have a group of initial partners including Opening Doors, CAIR Sacramento Valley, the California Immigration Project, La Familia Counseling Center and NorCal Resist. All [are] working to share our resources and support, and are also looking to invite in new community partners so that we can come together to support our neighbors right now.
What types of support and resources is this hub providing?
We're focusing on three main areas. One is strengthening our rapid response network so that when individuals do come in contact with ICE or Customs and Border Protection [CBP], we can make sure to get them legal counsel as soon as we can and try to provide support to their loved ones and family members.
The second is working to try to expand access to pro bono legal support. The reality is that there are just not enough free and low-cost immigration attorneys in our region. We are working to expand “pro se” workshops and other clinic type events where we can provide limited support to individuals going through the immigration process.
The third broad area is around community education, things like ‘know your rights’ workshops and education, family preparedness training… so that we can try to get information out to the community and help people feel empowered and in charge of their own future.
What does “rapid response” look like, how does it work?
We can use what happened [on July 17] as an example. Our partner NorCal Resist runs a hotline and has volunteers throughout the community, and so when someone in the community sees something that they suspect is ICE activity, they can call the hotline. At that point, the hotline and its volunteers will verify the activity. Oftentimes, it's actually not verified to be ICE activity, it's something else.
Then, if people are detained, we can put out calls… to get attorneys as quickly as possible to wherever [those] individuals are being held, whether that is in the ICE office in Sacramento, [after July 17] folks were held in the Stockton office, and trying to make sure that we can at least get a quick consultation out.
What we’re finding is that the key piece of information… in order to do those consultations is to know the individual’s full name, and something called their “A-Number” or their “Alien Number.” [This] is a number that an immigrant would have depending on what kind of process they're in. It is important for individuals to share that A-Number information with their loved ones and their family. If someone is detained we need to know that information in order to find out where they're detained, and how to get in contact with them.
How is this hub being funded? Do similar ones exist elsewhere across the state?
We're grateful to have support from the State of California to get this started and bring everyone together. And it's really building off of the strong work that's already been put in place by our partners throughout the region.
There are 11 regional hubs across the state [and] we also are in coordination with the other hubs as well. For example when those individuals were detained initially here in Sacramento and then transported to Stockton, which is outside of our region, we were able to connect with the hub down in Stockton to make sure that we could try to support those individuals.
Do you have an idea of how many people have been detained by immigration authorities so far in the region? CapRadio has reached out to Homeland Security, ICE and other federal agencies before but did not receive a response.
I think there's two different kinds of activities that we're aware of and concerned about. The raid outside of the Home Depot was one of the first in our region of that kind of activity. We have seen this in other parts of the state and in other states, so we knew that it was coming. And also with the additional federal dollars that will be coming into ICE’s budget, we have to assume we'll be seeing more of that.
What sets that apart is it’s different from targeted activity. [That] means there's a warrant for a specific individual, and ICE is going to that individual's home or workplace for one specific individual rather than just a detention of whoever happened to be there at the time.
The second thing that is really concerning are arrests that have been happening in immigration courts. We've seen this across the country… someone may be in removal proceedings or some other type of activity, and the judge will dismiss the case. The individual walks out into the hallway and is almost immediately apprehended by ICE right there in the courthouse.
Four ICE agents arrest a Guatemalan asylum seeker Tuesday, July 8, 2025, outside a Sacramento immigration courtroom at the John E. Moss Federal Building in downtown Sacramento.Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio
To date there’s been close to 40 individuals that’s happened to in the Sacramento courthouse. It has a really chilling effect on individuals who are following the process that they're supposed to. They're supposed to follow a certain process, file certain applications, go to a hearing when [it’s] scheduled, and now they're really faced with this anxiety-inducing circumstance when you have ICE arrests happening right there in the courthouse.
This enforcement has largely been tied to the Latino community, but how are other immigrant communities being impacted during this time?
We definitely do see a lot of these impacts in the Latino community, but it's not that community alone that is facing this kind of activity. We have seen Russians and Ukrainians be part of those who are arrested in the courthouse by ICE.
We have seen Hmong refugees who came here decades ago, who may have a green card but not adjusted their status to become a citizen, being detained. This is really something that is impacting diverse communities, and it's another reason why we all need to come together to support this… it really does impact all of us.
How are these communities feeling?
It's uncertainty, it's fear, it's anxiety. I think the level of anxiety across all communities is higher than I've ever seen. It's just another reason why it is so important for community members who want to join in and walk alongside their neighbors to do so because that's a way of saying to our immigrant neighbors, "You are not alone in this. We're here with you." So, if individuals want to volunteer, they can go to the website and learn more.
Some people might agree with the immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, or think that it is necessary. How would you respond to that?
I think it's important to consider what kind of enforcement and in which ways. I think in the lead up to this administration, there was a lot of conversation around detaining criminals. What we see is that that is a tiny portion of the individuals who have been detained thus far.
The folks who are impacted whether it's impacted through detention or just the anxiety and the fear are members of our community. They are parents of U.S. born kids. They are our neighbors, they are working in healthcare and construction and agriculture… industries that are incredibly important to our economy. And the impact of this fear and anxiety is going to ripple throughout our community.
