While teaching at La Collaborativa in Chelsea over the summer, Jennifer Manzano ’27 spotted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vans near the center, which supports the Greater Boston Latinx community. She says that her students — immigrant adults in Chelsea — did not attend class that day, deepening her concerns about immigration crackdowns.
“With the new [racial] profiling law that has just passed, I fear my family will be deported to somewhere that isn’t their home country … or held in jail for free labor,” Manzano said.
Although there has not been ICE presence on Wellesley’s campus, Dean of Students Sheilah Horton acknowledged in a school-wide email on Sept. 11 that “some in our community may be concerned” due to the increase in ICE activity. In the same email, Horton noted that it is important for vulnerable community members to know their rights when in Boston and Cambridge.
The email comes after the Trump administration began an ICE operation in Massachusetts earlier this month targeting “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens living in the state.” That same day, ICE was spotted on Boston College’s campus.
“The terror of witnessing what is happening to our communities is something that causes a lot of our students who come from an immigrant background to live in constant fear,” Professor of American Studies Irene Mata said. “The escalation of violence against immigrant communities … being justified is abhorrent.”
A Supreme Court decision on Sept. 8, 2025 further allows ICE employees to conduct stops without reasonable suspicion, meaning that an ICE officer is permitted to arrest someone based solely on their race, ethnicity, language spoken and occupation. Civil rights organizations argue this would “lead to a radical expansion of racial profiling by law enforcement.”
In response to growing concerns, several campus organizations are working to provide resources to support the community. The Slater International Center is distributing “Know Your Rights” cards to students and student groups, and Wellesley Raíz, a student group that advocates for the rights of immigrant and refugee communities, is organizing educational events and emotional support spaces.
Founded in 2016 during Trump’s first term, Raíz was recently revived in anticipation of increased immigration enforcement.
Former President of Raíz and current member, Katherine Torres ’26, shares that the organization is collaborating with other cultural groups like Mezcla, the largest Latinx cultural organization at Wellesley, and Wellesley for Caribbean Development, which strives to represent Caribbean culture on campus, to host students and professors speaking on the intersection of race, immigration, and justice.
Raíz also organizes self-care events focused on mental health, creating open spaces for discussion and reflection, especially for international students and those with immigrant family members.
In addition, the organization helps connect students to “Know Your Rights” training and other activist organizations, aiming to raise awareness and educate the community about ongoing immigration issues.
“The whole point of Raíz is to not only educate the community on what’s going on, but also to provide a safe space for students who are feeling directly impacted or feeling this guilt, this burnout of reading articles every single day coming out about a new raid, a new deportation, a new executive order,” Torres said.
She hopes Raíz can “be a space to build community” and adds that she doesn’t want people to believe that immigration is solely an issue that impacts Hispanic communities. While Hispanic communities are disproportionately affected by immigration crackdowns, other groups are also vulnerable to ICE enforcement, especially in Massachusetts, where there are large Haitian, Vietnamese, and Brazilian populations.
Despite attempts to build cultural connections on campus, many students coming from communities impacted by ICE feel removed from the events occurring in various parts of the country.
“I feel isolated and, at times, even as if I’m betraying my community. These raids are happening, and we are here in the town of Wellesley,” Torres said.
To support students, Torres suggests that professors and other community members should be “aware of the heaviness” of this situation and continue “being open and willing to discuss” these topics.
Mata echoes this sentiment, expressing the need to continuously encourage these important, often painful and difficult, conversations in the classroom and care for our community’s most vulnerable members.
“Looking to our ancestors and communities … to learn about their own organizing efforts, and the fact that we are still here, illustrates that so much of that organizing was successful,” Mata said. “They resisted so that we could exist now.”
Contact the editors responsible for this story: Jessica Chen and Lyanne Wang
