By all accounts, Tuesday’s election went off with few complications, but for the immigrant communities, there was fear of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showing up at polling places.
In response, two community organizations stepped up to host voting centers at their offices, providing safe spaces for people to cast their ballots.
“Especially the members of our community that have been historically marginalized, underserved, that feel that they have not been included or fear has been used as a tactic against them to not engage in our election process,” said Jimmy Figueroa, the senior director of youth and community programs at Chicano Federation of San Diego.
In front of Barrio Station in Logan Heights, the lines stretched out the door on Election Day, but the wait time was minimal.
“For the people that I saw at the back of the line coming 20 minutes later, I would already see them at the front of the line,” Figueroa said.
Barrio Station hasn’t been a polling place since 2020, when San Diego switched from the precinct format to the vote center format.
Figueroa said it was important for the Federation to reestablish the location as a polling place to ensure the community felt safe and knew the staff.
“It was pivotal to have the voting center here at Barrio Station, specifically accessible to the Barrio Logan community,” he said.
This comes amid the Trump administration's surge in immigration crackdowns in recent weeks. There were some reports of ICE agents at vote centers in Northern California. That spooked some San Diego residents.
“We've sensed that many of our immigrant communities have expressed some level of fear regarding the increased immigration enforcement and the horrific kidnapping of our community members,” said Homayra Yusufi with Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans (PANA). “So we want to make sure that folks had a safe space that they could cast their vote.”
Yusufi, a senior policy strategist at PANA, said it was the first year the organization hosted a vote center.
“We had a grandma come here,” she said. “She had lived in San Diego and City Heights for decades and had never voted before, and this was her first time coming in here. And because she knew where PANA was, she felt safe here.”
The fear is not unfounded. A recent ProPublica investigation found that more than 500 U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE since the start of the second Trump administration.
“It was great to see us prioritizing our neighbors over hate,” Yusufi said. “And so I am just really excited to see the record number of turnout that happened yesterday at the elections.”
She said Tuesday's high voter turnout gave her hope.
