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Just before midnight on June 13, 2025, a small group of activists gathered quietly outside the Residence Inn by Marriott in Long Beach, California. A few blocks away, the scene was louder and more charged: demonstrators with megaphones chanted outside the Holiday Inn near the Long Beach airport, while police officers stood guard near the front of the establishment.

Word had spread through social media that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had reportedly checked into both hotels. Within the hour, a small contingent of local residents had arrived at both establishments. They were there to make sure ICE agents didn’t sleep.

This was one of several “No Sleep for ICE” events that popped up during the month of June. In a time when large-scale protests often dominate headlines, a different kind of resistance is taking root across Southern California. Small, decentralized networks of community members are using stealthy tactics and real-time coordination to monitor, disrupt, and expose the movements of federal immigration officers.

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Across L.A. County, the strategy of monitoring ICE movements and responding in real time has become one of the most effective tools in rapid-response activism.

“They shouldn’t be kidnapping people off the street,” said Michael Gearin, a local Long Beach resident, who spoke to Truthout during the anti-ICE mobilization efforts in June.

​​“If [ICE] wants to come back after a day of kidnapping landscapers and want to kick back and have a beer at the Residence Inn, I say no,” Gearin said, emphasizing his commitment to protecting his neighbors from immigration enforcement. “Why should they have an easy night when everybody else is scared?”

No Sleep For ICE is just one of several pop-up actions that have proliferated over the last several months throughout Southern California. As the immigration raids intensified from the start of June, leading into the late summer months, locals sought out increasingly creative ways to protect vulnerable community members. Many of these micro-movements rarely make the evening news, but they have become the core of mobilization efforts.

In the months leading up to President Donald Trump’s inauguration, grassroots organizers quietly prepared for an expected surge in immigration raids. Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona, an educator and member of Unión del Barrio, partook in community patrols that monitor and track the movements of immigration enforcement agents, alerting local residents in real........

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