Immigration arrests are increasing nationwide as the Trump crackdown intensifies. By some estimates, nearly three in four have no criminal convictions. But nearly all have families they leave behind. Here in the Delmarva region, several volunteer groups have popped up to help those family members cope and survive. Kevin Diaz talked to some of them.
BERLIN, Md. — When artist Kirk McBride returned from his morning dog walk in Berlin, Maryland, he expected an ordinary day. Instead, he found federal immigration agents parked just a block from an elementary school, an encounter that would help spark a grassroots effort to support families left behind by immigration enforcement.
"I was not expecting any ICE in Berlin," McBride said. "I was just in shock."
McBride said he came upon "three or four black SUVs with blacked out windows" stopped near an intersection. The agents, he said, appeared to be searching for a single individual.
"So I came to the stop sign," McBride recalled. "There was three or four black SUVs with blacked out windows, and they were apparently looking for one suspect to pick up. It was ICE."
Concerned that immigration officers might target parents dropping children off at school, McBride immediately contacted the vice principal at Buckingham Elementary School, just a block away.
"I heard that ICE was hanging out near schools looking for parents to drop off their kids and then pick 'em up and detain them," he said. "They ended up taking the father of one of the elementary school kids here at Buckingham Elementary."
The arrest galvanized local residents. Soon after, community members formed Neighbors Helping Neighbors, an informal volunteer network dedicated to assisting families whose primary wage earners have been detained or deported during the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts.
The Berlin group is one of several organizations that have emerged across the Delmarva Peninsula to fill gaps left when families suddenly lose a parent, income and stability.
Melissa Reid, a teacher and one of the group's organizers, said educators quickly recognized the impact immigration enforcement was having on local students.
"Where I teach we know that we do have families that have been affected by ICE," Reid said. "Because Berlin is a tight knit community, the word went out that day to ensure that ICE was not then going to show up at some of the places where these families live."
As immigration arrests continued, organizers saw the need for a longer-term response.
"Since then, we have had families who have had one parent detained and then now we've had a couple of families who have had since one parent deported, and that affects every aspect of these kids' lives," Reid said. "So it affects them financially, it affects them emotionally."
The group's mission, she said, grew organically through neighbors looking out for one another.
"So that was where this group just came together," Reid said. "Totally. Community members just kind of crowdsourcing. It's neighbors helping neighbors."
The Berlin initiative follows a model established by Sussex Help, another volunteer network serving families on the Eastern Shore.
Jack Dixon, one of Sussex Help's organizers, said the group's focus is not on interfering with immigration enforcement but on responding to its consequences.
"ICE is taking pretty exclusively family providers, people who are working, people who are making a living, supporting their family," Dixon said. "So when they take that person, the family is left with no one and nothing."
Rather than confront federal agents, volunteers concentrate on helping families meet their most immediate needs.
"ICE is going through our communities, destroying families, damaging families, tearing them apart, and putting people into existential poverty without even thinking about it," Dixon said. "All we are doing is going around behind ICE and trying to pick up the pieces and hope people get back on their feet."
Initially, much of that work happened quietly, through trusted community organizations and immigrant churches. Organizers wanted to protect vulnerable families while avoiding unwanted attention.
"We initially started providing food, clothing, formula, diapers," Dixon said. "We work as much as possible through immigrant churches, through community service organizations like La Esperanza, organizations that are frontline with the community that the community is comfortable with."
As demand for financial assistance has grown, however, some of these volunteer efforts have become more public. Sussex Help now operates a website to collect donations, while Neighbors Helping Neighbors holds regular meetings at the local public library to coordinate support.
Business owner Kim Holloway said she became involved after witnessing immigration enforcement affect employees at her Ocean City restaurant.
"They are good people. They're not criminals," Holloway said. "So that's what all of this was initiated for, to get the criminals out of the country. And that is not what this is about anymore."
Organizers acknowledge there are limits to what neighborhood volunteer groups can accomplish. They cannot halt immigration arrests or deportations. What they can do, they say, is ensure families facing sudden hardship have food, clothing, diapers and a network of people willing to help.
For volunteers in Berlin and across Delmarva, the work is rooted in a simple idea: when a family faces crisis, neighbors step in to help neighbors.
