With ‘Barrio Walks’, the Party for Socialism and Liberation relays essential immigration resources

Tucson, Arizona – Aurora Ramirez, Bethany Quilter and John Curry walked along a residential street on Tucson’s south side on a recent Saturday morning. They each held a stack of papers with facts about the U.S. immigration system, along with red "Know Your Rights" cards and orange cards with the number to Tucson’s rapid response network.

Their goal that morning — as it has been almost every Saturday morning for volunteers with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) in Tucson since early 2025 — was to talk to neighbors and ensure they know what to do if a federal immigration agent came knocking on their door or encountered them in public spaces around their neighborhood. The party also aims to identify community leaders and longtime residents who are willing to organize their fellow community members.

Ramirez, Quilter and Curry were among a group of 17 volunteers who spent a recent Saturday morning in a neighborhood near 12th Avenue south of Ajo Way, sharing potentially life-saving information with their Tucson neighbors.

Almost every week since February, a group of volunteers from PSL Tucson has participated in “Barrio Walks” in several neighborhoods on Tucson’s south side, sharing information and discussing national developments related to immigration detention. 

As federal immigration agents across the country continue to raid businesses and detain people, PSL has joined many local organizations standing up for immigrants’ rights, pushing back against President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. 

Since the beginning of the year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has ramped up its activity, especially in larger Democrat-led cities like Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Phoenix, New York and Chicago. In Tucson, neighbors have reported seeing ICE agents outside of Home Depot and Walmart in Tucson’s majority-Latine south side. 

Ramirez, who has volunteered with PSL Tucson for about two years, is a first-generation immigrant and has family members who are undocumented. So, immigration issues hit close to home for her, she said.

“We believe that the only way we're going to win is if we organize,” Ramirez said. “The capitalists, the Republicans, the Democrats, they're very well organized, but [they organize] for their needs. They're not fighting for our needs or our rights. So we really have to out-organize them, and it starts with talking to people one by one.”

On Saturday morning, Ramirez, Quilter and Curry approached Alma Alvarez, who was mowing grass in her front yard. Alvarez shut off the grass trimmer, approached the group near her gate and accepted the packet Ramirez handed her. The conversation flowed naturally. Alvarez emphasized that immigrants come to the United States to work — most are good people, she told the group. 

In an interview with CALO News a few days later, she reiterated that immigrants move to the U.S. to overcome barriers by working hard. 

Alvarez first crossed the border with a temporary work permit in 1984. She would work a few months in a lettuce farm near Eloy, then work the nut farms in Sahuarita and Green Valley. Eventually, she just stayed in Arizona and brought her three children with her. She was an undocumented immigrant for some time, but in 1995 she obtained a green card and in 1999 became a naturalized citizen.

Since then, she has owned grilled chicken restaurants with her daughter and son-in-law, employing mostly Latine workers, further cementing in her mind that immigrants come to the U.S. to work hard, she said. 

Her time in the U.S. has also led to fractures in her family, with several loved ones impacted by the broken immigration system. Her son got deported three times, the last of which came with a 20-year punishment barring him from coming back to the U.S., she said. After spending eight months in a detention center, he went back to Mexico for good. 

Her daughter’s ex-husband was also deported, forcing her daughter to move back to Mexico with him for more than a decade.

“I don’t think they’re being just with [immigrants],” she said of immigration agents, adding that organizers tell immigrants they have rights, but it feels like a lie because they’re not given a chance to defend themselves against ICE agents. “When we least expect it, they already have them tied up, or they have them in Florence [Immigration Detention Center] or they’re already deporting them.”

Alvarez said it’s essential for people in immigrant communities to be informed not only of their rights but also of what is happening to others and why. It’s important to battle disinformation and misinformation, she said, adding that organizers should host information sessions in community schools and libraries to meet people where they are. She said what PSL volunteers are doing is important. 

After a brief conversation with the PSL volunteers, she gave them permission to contact her for future events. 

Ramirez said the organization is looking for longtime residents like Alvarez to organize their communities. 

“What we're really trying to do is find those leaders that already exist in our neighborhoods,” Ramirez said. “It's not for PSL to come in and say, ‘This is how you need to do things.’ It's like, ‘How do we work collaboratively? You've already been living in this neighborhood for a long time. You know your neighbors. You know what's best for your community. So how can we organize together?’” 

She said it’s going to take everyday residents organizing, uniting and fighting against those in power to gain rights. 

“I think the saying ‘El pueblo salva al pueblo’ is huge when you think about that,” Ramirez said. “Because… the people in power, the people that are benefiting from our struggle, they're not just gonna wake up one day and be like, ‘You know what? Yeah, I'm gonna give them rights.’ They're gonna continue exploiting us and oppressing us as much as they can. So it really needs to be for us to stand up and say enough is enough. We have to save ourselves.”

Quilter, who has volunteered on a few Barrio Walks this year, said she lives in a majority Latine neighborhood and agreed on the importance of people knowing how to protect themselves, especially as ICE continues to ignore everyone’s constitutional rights.  

“I also think it's just important for community members to see that there are people who are fighting with them and standing with them,” Quilter said. “And that they're not alone in the fight.”

Stephanie Casanova is an independent journalist from Tucson, Arizona, covering community stories for 10 years. She is passionate about narrative, in-depth storytelling that is inclusive and reflects the diversity of the communities she covers. She recently covered the criminal justice beat at Signal Cleveland, where she shed light on injustices and inequities in the criminal legal system and centered the experiences of justice-involved individuals, both victims and people who go through the system and their impacted loved ones.