Faith-Based Group Warns of Increased ICE Activity in Fresno After Fatal Shootings

Faith in the Valley issued a community alert Monday morning after observing what the organization described as increased ICE activity at Fresno’s federal immigration enforcement office—agents in tactical gear, a riot shield, and multiple unmarked SUVs parked at the downtown field office that covers six Central Valley counties.

The warning came days after a coalition of Central Valley advocacy groups, including Faith in the Valley, held a vigil outside the same Fresno office demanding accountability for two fatal ICE-involved shootings that happened within a week of each other—one in Maine on July 13, one in Texas on July 7. Both people killed were stopped in their vehicles by ICE agents, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“This morning, July 20, we observed increased ICE activity at the Fresno ERO, including several SUVs, agents in tactical gear, and a riot shield,” the social media alert read. Photos showed several black SUVs without license plates parked at the ICE field office.

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Nora Zaragoza-Yáñez, program manager of Faith in the Valley’s Valley Watch Network Rapid Response hotline, said the warning was meant to keep people informed, not frightened. “We’re just trying to keep the community on the alert, not to scare them,” she said.

The increase in agents and vehicles at the field office could indicate “a greater likelihood” that enforcement operations will take place in the region, Zaragoza-Yáñez said. The Fresno Enforcement and Removal Operations office covers Merced, Mariposa, Madera, Fresno, Kings and Tulare counties.

Faith in the Valley has not received reports of ICE activity in those other counties as of Monday, but the organization’s legal observers are either on assignment, standing by, or patrolling their communities, Zaragoza-Yáñez said.

The alert follows a Friday vigil, rally and press conference outside the Fresno ICE office where Central Valley advocacy groups demanded accountability after the two fatal shootings. An ICE agent shot and killed Joan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, 26, a Colombian national, during an immigration enforcement operation July 13 in Biddeford, Maine. That shooting happened less than a week after Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was fatally shot July 7 in Houston. Both shootings occurred when ICE agents tried to stop their vehicles, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

ICE was ordered last week to temporarily suspend vehicle stops in the wake of the two shootings—a pause that immigrant rights organizations in the Valley saw as a temporary win.

The Breakdown

• Faith in the Valley observed increased ICE activity at Fresno’s downtown field office Monday morning—tactical gear, a riot shield, and multiple unmarked SUVs.
• The Fresno ICE office covers six Central Valley counties: Merced, Mariposa, Madera, Fresno, Kings and Tulare.
• The alert came days after two fatal ICE-involved shootings within a week—July 7 in Houston, July 13 in Maine—both during vehicle stops.
• ICE was ordered to temporarily suspend vehicle stops last week following the shootings.
• Faith in the Valley said the increase in agents and vehicles at the office could indicate a higher likelihood of enforcement operations in the region.

What This Means for You

ICE enforcement policy—who gets detained, how operations are carried out, whether vehicle stops continue despite the temporary suspension—is set by the executive branch, meaning the President you elect and the officials that administration appoints. The uptick Faith in the Valley observed at Fresno’s field office, combined with two fatal shootings in a single week during ICE operations elsewhere, is part of how you judge whether that enforcement authority is being exercised responsibly or recklessly.

If you live in one of the six counties this office covers, this alert is telling you that enforcement activity may be ramping up in your community right now. The decision to deploy tactical gear and riot shields to an immigration field office is an administrative choice—one made by people your vote helps put in or remove from power.

What You Can Do

If you see ICE or immigration-related activity in your community, you can call or text the Valley Watch Network at 559-206-0151. Provide as much detail as possible: what you saw, the time, vehicle descriptions, license plates, and any other information. Faith in the Valley can send legal observers to verify sightings.

The organization’s alert advised: “If you are in these areas, stay calm, stay alert and remember your rights.”

What to Watch

The temporary suspension of ICE vehicle stops—ordered after two people were killed in a single week during such stops—raises a direct question: will that suspension hold, or will it quietly expire while the increased activity Faith in the Valley observed at Fresno’s office continues?

A riot shield and tactical gear at an immigration enforcement office is not standard desk-work equipment. It signals an operation being prepared, not routine administrative business. Whether that operation materializes in Fresno or the surrounding counties, and whether it involves the kind of vehicle stop that just led to two deaths, is worth watching closely—not as a hypothetical, but as something the federal agency with jurisdiction over your community is visibly gearing up to do.

The accountability demand Faith in the Valley and other groups raised at Friday’s vigil—explain these shootings, justify the tactics, answer for who died—has not been answered. Increased activity at the Fresno office, days later, without that accountability in place, is either coincidence or a signal that the demand was ignored. Either way, you’re entitled to know which.