by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

Heartfelt and tearful testimonies from Pomona residents and workers about recent run-ins with federal immigration agents made for a tense atmosphere at a public hearing convened by Pomona Mayor Tim Sandoval.

About 100 people attended the May 2 event at The Union, including Sandoval, Pomona City Council member Nora Garcia, staff from Inland Communities Organizing Network, a local affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation. It was organized by ICON, with support from Gente Organizada, the Latino and Latina Roundtable of the San Gabriel and Pomona Valley, and ICE out of Pomona.

Media was instructed by organizers not to photograph those giving their testimony, who numbered nearly a dozen, out of concern for their safety. They spoke of legal confusion, family separation, fiscal hardship, and pleaded for aid. Many were hesitant to speak to the Courier.

Pomona Mayor Tim Sandoval at a May 2 public hearing at Union where about a dozen residents shared stories of recent interactions with federal immigration agents. The meeting was convened by Sandoval and organized by Inland Communities Organizing Network. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

Joined by her two daughters, a woman named Maria recounted how ICE agents chased her husband and 10-year-old son near the Pomona/Ontario border on April 25. She said her husband was given conflicting instructions on how to proceed with his immigration court hearings, costing time and money, and he and their young son now live in fear of going outside.

Guadalupe said her husband was arrested by ICE on January 21, and remains in detention in Mexico. The mother of five said she fears telling her landlord her husband is gone as it could cause the family to be evicted.

Olivia said her 70-year-old husband and son were arrested by ICE in early January. Her son was released, but her husband Samuel remains in custody in California City. Her main concern is Samuel is not receiving his heart medication despite her many pleas with authorities to allow the medicine into the facility.

A Pomona Unified School District teacher said some of her students are staying away from school due to fear of immigration officers.

“In a recent gathering of our members we documented a collective story, a snapshot of what it looks like to teach in a district where fear has become a part of the curriculum for many of our students due to the terror of ICE and U.S. Border Patrol enforcement activities in our community,” she said. “In this school year, we’re witnessing a crisis of disappearing families. We have seen a severe decline in enrollment.”

Carlos Escobar recounted how he was detained and held at Adelanto ICE Processing Center last year from June to September. Only thoughts of his 17-year-old son and God kept him going, he said.

A man who was part of a group of day laborers picked up by ICE at Home Depot in Pomona on April 22, 2025 said he was transported to an unknown location and held for three days before being moved to Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, where was in custody for 64 days in conditions he compared to “hell.”

Jessica Fallon, an organizer with ICON, said the hearing took about four months to coordinate.

“Everybody knows a couple people,” who have been impacted by recent federal immigration crackdowns, Fallon said. “We were able to find enough people that were willing to share their stories and were brave enough to do so … We had some people who were eager to do so, and we had some people where the reassurance we wanted to offer was that the goal of this is to make sure that we are recording testimony of what’s happening for posterity and for future accountability.”

Testimonies were recorded, transcribed and forwarded to U.S. Congressman Robert Garcia, a Democrat and the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, who has launched investigations into allegations of unlawful detention and constitutional violations related to recent immigration raids, according to Sandoval.

“It’s so, so important to tell these stories because somebody at the federal level has to be held accountable for these unconstitutional acts against our community,” Sandoval said. “And the only way you do that is by having these public hearings. What I heard today was just a reaffirmation of the pain and suffering that we’re all going through during this time.”

Council member Garcia shared her takeaway from the meeting.

“What stuck out to me today is the generational harm that ICE is having on our community,” she said. “This will be remembered for years, if not generations. But the most immediate impact is the financial impact to our community because it’s a chain reaction; if our residents can’t afford to pay their bills, if they can’t afford to eat, then that affects other aspects of our economy and our city … This is going to harm our city and our community because it’s going to increase the hunger, the homelessness, and just the lack of affordability.”

On April 6, the Pomona City Council passed a resolution to restrict federal immigration authorities from city-owned properties such as “parking lots, parking ramps, vacant lots, and garages to facilitate civil immigration enforcement actions.” Additional action to limit ICE’s use of warehouses for detention purposes is in the works, Garcia said.

“My district, district three, is primarily or at least half industrial. There’s a lot of big buildings that could potentially be used for huge warehouse ICE detention centers,” she said. “We are trying, from a zoning code point of view, to eliminate that use. Our planning commission just passed the okay [last month]. Next step will be coming to council hopefully by this summer.”

In his closing remarks, Sandoval drew parallels with his trip to the Anne Frank House in the Netherlands and U.S. immigration officers roaming the streets and going into hospitals and businesses looking to make arrests.

“In 2026, stories that you’ve heard today are those very stories of a child not knowing whether their parents are going to be home when they return from school, or a man sitting at a bus stop, simply to get his medication so that he could take care of his heart issues, or a mother having to work multiple jobs because her husband’s been deported,” Sandoval said. “That is why it’s so, so important for us to come together, to show support, to work together.”