The immigrant worker organizing group Siembra NC has a new immigration enforcement app. The initiative comes in response to the border patrol operation in Charlotte.=
The app, “OJO Obrero” or “look out, workers,” tracks ICE movements and actions with the help of community input. Unlike other crowdsourcing apps, like Waze, the reports — indicated on a digital map — are only sightings that have been independently confirmed by Siembra NC moderators.
Communications strategist Emanuel Gomez Gonzalez says the app is designed to be a historical record that cuts through the noise.
"One of the things we've been dealing with, really, since the beginning of the second Trump administration, is the impact that rumors have had on our community, trying to make sense of what is just suspected sightings, what is just a rumor someone heard, or maybe even a misidentified officer, local law enforcement misidentified as being a federal agent conducting these kinds of immigration enforcement actions," he says.
Gonzalez says the data so far has shown that the Department of Homeland Security’s operation in Charlotte is targeting workers.
"Trying to get themselves to work, that is what we have seen," says Gonzalez. "Videos already coming out of people being questioned at the grocery store about their place of origin, being pulled out of their vehicle, even after they've identified themselves to agents. And continuously, we're seeing what the actual impact of sending federal agents into our community is."
Gonzalez says Siembra’s community patrols, with hundreds of trained volunteers, support safe passage to schools and work. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security operations in the Charlotte area and beyond can be found at OJONC.org.