(Houston) “Be careful!” And may everyone go home! It is with these words on Facebook that Martina Grifaldo begins her days, spent alerting her 171,000 subscribers of possible descents of the very dreaded immigration police from Donald Trump.
As of dawn, after the usual greetings, this American of Mexican origin, at the head of the Alianza Latina Internacional association, poses the fateful question on the situation in the streets of Houston, the big city of Texas, the fourth city of the United States in number of inhabitants.
“We post the emoji of an ice cube next to that of a police officer by asking people to help us by reporting” where they are, explains the 62 -year -old notary, born in this southern state, which has important communities from Latin America.
Photo Mark Felix, Agency France-Presse
Francisco Mendoza and Martina Grifaldo
The policeman and the ice cube, a reference to the federal immigration police called ICE, an acronym that corresponds to the word “ice” in English. For weeks, his rather strong and masked agents have aroused terror in the Latin communities of the country, with massive arrests, sometimes very violent. Images that go around social networks.
“At any time”
President Donald Trump regularly denounces the presence of immigrants whom he describes as “illegal” or even “criminals”. According to NGOs to defense human rights, however, the vast majority of persons detained in detention centers have no judicial history.
These organizations accuse Ice of engaging in facies controls, by conducting descents in places frequented mainly by Latinos and targeting people with Latin American appearance.
The subscribers of Martina Grifaldo regularly send him filmed videos with their phones, showing men, sometimes without uniform or arrest warrant.
“Each time we see as they treat them, we are a little terrorized, because it could happen to us at any time,” says Francisco Mendoza, a plumber of 57 -year -old Mexican origin, engaged with the same association Alianza Latina Internacional.
In July, the NGO Human Rights Watch accused the American authorities of treating “degrading and dehumanizing” people detained in detention centers, speaking of “conditions which constitute a blatant violation of international human rights standards”.
On this September day, Francisco Mendoza accompanies in Martina Grifaldo van to crisscross the roads, where they sometimes come across vehicles appearing abandoned and who turn out to belong to arrested.
“Risks for us”
Under their yellow and fluorescent orange cap, the two acolytes also keep an eye on the messages they receive. One of them comes from employees of a restaurant that invite them to eat a song to thank them.
Photo Mark Felix, Agency France-Presse
The activist Martina Grifaldo, broadcasts live on social networks while following the operations of the ICE in Houston, in Texas, on September 17, 2025.
It is in this restaurant that Elizabeth works, a 35-year-old Salvadorian who fights to regularize her situation in the United States, where she arrived ten years ago with her son and mother.
“I take my hat off to them because they take risks for us. Thanks to them, we remain informed. I take care of my mother who is sick, imagine that she is waiting for me and that I do not come home, ”she says, serving snacks to Martina Grifaldo and Francisco Mendoza.
The latter confides having “a broken heart”: “we lived more or less in peace, we worked, we paid our taxes”.
Because, he recalls, in the United States, “undocumented migrants pay a lot of taxes, which are donated to different state services, and we receive nothing in return, no help, contrary to what they say”.
The patrol ends in the late afternoon. Martina Grifaldo concludes the day with a new message on Facebook: “It’s difficult, but you have to rest. Tomorrow is another day when we will continue to resist ”.
