Tucson Activists Build Public Map to Expose Rising ICE Raids Under Trump’s Mass Deportation Blitz

Tucson’s immigrant communities are under siege as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests have more than tripled since President Donald Trump’s mass deportation initiative took hold. In response, local advocates have created the Tucson Migra Map, a community-built platform that documents and visualizes ICE and other federal immigration enforcement activities across the city.

The map, developed by a coalition including University of Arizona Ph.D. student and geographer Dugan Meyer alongside Tucson Rapid Response volunteers, pulls from a detailed database tracking raids, vehicle stops, and aerial surveillance since January 2025. This data is verified through photographs, eyewitness accounts, and community reports, with incidents classified as “confirmed” or “credible but unconfirmed” to maintain accuracy.

“It indicates the level of chaos and how disruptive it is to our community,” said activist Lucia Vindiola, founder of La Bodega, a mutual aid group supporting families impacted by the crackdown. She described how enforcement actions have restricted people’s ability to shop for basic groceries and supplies, underscoring the daily toll on immigrant families.

The map highlights hotspots such as El Super grocery store on Tucson’s south side and targeted apartment complexes, showing how ICE uses these locations as “hunting grounds” for raids. The tool also includes flight paths of federal surveillance aircraft and local detention facilities, offering a rare window into the otherwise opaque operations of immigration enforcement.

This initiative builds on previous efforts to track ICE activity nationwide, including the now-defunct People over Papers project, which was shut down after federal pressure. Despite threats from authorities claiming such transparency endangers officers, Meyer and his collaborators are confident that constitutional free speech protections will safeguard their work.

Steven Davis, a Rapid Response member who has personally documented enforcement incidents — including being pepper sprayed by federal agents — emphasized the importance of making ICE’s actions visible. “We take this out of the shadows and get it out into the public,” he said.

The Tucson Migra Map does not provide real-time alerts but serves as a critical archival resource to reveal patterns of abuse and inform community resistance. With over 300 verified incidents logged by April 2026, the map exposes the scale of ICE’s aggressive tactics under Trump’s administration and empowers local residents to hold federal agencies accountable.

As immigration enforcement intensifies nationwide, Tucson’s community-driven mapping project stands as a bold act of defiance, shining a light on the human cost of authoritarian policies and the resilience of grassroots organizing.