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Voices from the Borderlands: Tucson, AZ

“There's only one constitution, not two, one for an immigrant, one for you. So when they diminish rights for immigrants, they diminish them for you."

- Isabel Garcia

This month, Voices from the Borderlands travels to Tucson, Arizona to highlight resistance efforts along the U.S.-Mexico border. We met with Isabel Garcia, co-founder of Coalición de Derechos Humanos and member of the NNIRR Board of Directors, who for over the past four decades had stood up for immigrant rights. Isabel helps us learn how communities in Southern Arizona are organizing in the face of escalating immigration enforcement and border militarization.

In our conversation, Isabel shared updates on Tucson’s Rapid Response Team, the newly launched Stop the Kidnapping Campaign, and the ongoing fight against the repurposing of the Arizona Marana Prison into a private detention center.

Tucson’s Rapid Response Coalition

Isabel illuminates the work of the Defensiva Resistencia, a coalition of over twenty organizations combating the escalating militarization, detention, and criminalization of immigrants in Southern Arizona with a community defense structure.

The Rapid Response team serves as a line of defense, ensuring that when detentions, raids, or disappearances take place, families aren’t left alone and violations don't go unseen. The coalition trains new volunteers, strengthens documentation tools, and ensures impacted families receive support.

This coalition has developed committees to help communities resist and respond to ICE and Border Patrol operations.

Committees include:

Legal Services
Observation & Documentation
Emotional & Court Accompaniment
Media & Political Liaison
…and 12 others dedicated to community defense.

Stop the Kidnapping Project

Amid rising fear of raids, the coalition launched the Stop the Kidnapping Campaign, a grassroots effort to educate neighbors about their rights and tactics for neighborhood defense and solidarity. This initiative embodies community based defense built on trust, vigilance, and collective courage.

Volunteers distribute whistles laminated with "Know Your Rights” cards to empower communities to act and protect one another. When blown, the whistles help residents mobilize and draw attention to enforcement actions. In conjunction, the KYR cards provide clear guidance on what to do if approached or detained by immigration enforcement.

This campaign empowers residents, "block by block” to transform fear into coordinated community defense. “You don't have to be one of the documenters or observers or accompaniment.” with the whistles “you're there to try to make noise and stop it.”

Marana Prison: A Community’s Ongoing Fight

Just north of Tucson, organizers are resisting the transformation of Marana Prison into a private immigration detention center. The facility, originally a state prison, was sold in July 2025 to Management & Training Corporation (MTC) for $15 million. MTC operates multiple detention centers nationwide, and reports indicate that Marana may soon house migrants under contracts with ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.

The budget bill passed by Congress this year allocates $45 billion for the expansion of immigration detention, which directly contributes to the private detention system. These contracts will allow federal taxpayer dollars to pay MTC for each detainee, creating a financial incentive to expand confinement and maximize occupancy and divert funds away from critical social services. The privatization of this facility is a part of a pattern of exploiting migrants for financial gain.

Privatized detention facilities like Marana prioritize profit over people, cutting corners and neglecting human rights in pursuit of revenue. Across Pima County, Arizona, community members, like Isabel, have attended public hearings educating residents and spotlighting the human costs of detention. Organizers are demanding transparency oversight and an end to expansion of for-profit detention.

Building Power from the Borderlands

From Marana Prison to the border, fear of detention, disappearance, and immigrant rights abuses affect everyone. Isabel's message is clear, “the only thing you can do when you're scared is to organize.”

When asked how people can help Isabel’s answer was direct, “Join local coalitions.” She emphasizes that “it is vital to defend migrant rights. Defending migrant rights defends your right to Social Security, your right to a job, your right to everything right now.”

She invites readers to help document abuses particularly as threats grow.

Isabel Garcia and friends at a No Kings Protest.

Resources

Learn more about the work of Coalición de Derechos Humanos and La Defensiva Resistencia Coalition, and find ways to support organizing against detention expansion and human rights abuses. Together we can ensure that border communities are zones of justice, accountability, community defense.

Rapid Response Number

Dial the Tucson Community Rapid Response Line. Trained community observers will come to your location to provide support and ensure human rights are not being violated.

Call 520-221-4077

Become a volunteer

Volunteer to organize and defend your Tucson neighborhood!