Whatcom County nonprofit a key resource for families separated by ICE detentions
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Raid Relief to Reunite Families supports Whatcom County families after ICE raids
- Group connects families with funding and social services through local partners
- IRIS assists immigrant women and children impacted by violence and detentions
Editor’s note: This article is also available in Spanish.
Ruby Castañeda has dedicated the last few years of her life to helping families who have been impacted by deportations in Whatcom County.
Castañeda’s husband was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2018 during a raid, along with 15 others, at Granite Precast in Bellingham. As a result, she and the other 15 affected families came together to create the grassroots organization Raid Relief to Reunite Families, with the goal to support families who have been impacted by ICE detainments in Whatcom County.
Raid Relief to Reunite Families works to connect families with organizations that can provide them with helpful resources, Castañeda told The Bellingham Herald in an interview.
“Raid Relief to Reunite Families right now is pretty much the ‘trusting relationship’ that refers and works closely with the other organizations that can provide either the funding and or resource needed,” Castañeda said.
One of the organizations Castañeda works with is Immigrant Resources and Immediate Support (IRIS), a Bellingham-based organization that primarily works with immigrant women and children who are survivors of violence in Whatcom, Skagit and Snohomish counties.
IRIS was created over five years ago by Bellingham immigration attorney Leta Rae, according to IRIS Executive Director Norma Suarez Govea. The program is currently helping over a dozen people, many of whom have had family members detained.
Sometimes the aid is just a one-time deposit to help with rent. Other times the program works with families for years at a time, Govea said.
“Many of the dads are detained, so we support the moms,” she said. “That means connecting them to resources or helping them with rent and legal fees. With those moms, we help them watch out for immigration attorneys that might just be trying to take advantage of people. We teach them what signs to look for.”
IRIS doesn’t do a lot of community outreach, and they usually have people come to them for help. That’s where organizations like Castañeda’s come in.
When someone is detained by ICE in Whatcom County, Castañeda contacts the family to determine what they need at the moment, which is usually money for legal fees, she told The Herald.
However, families who have had loved ones arrested by ICE are usually afraid to come forward, Castañeda said. Her job is to be a trusted face that can connect those families with the resources they need, from food to providing money for legal fees.
“People don’t want to talk, not even to me. People don’t want to disclose information that sometimes is necessary in order to get the help to them, to get the resources to them,” Castañeda said.
Govea said there are some people who are afraid to go to work because they don’t know if ICE will show up and take them away, so they have been short on money and unable to pay rent.
The fear has become more common across the U.S. as ICE arrests are increasing in every state, Castañeda said. ICE agents are also now not identifying themselves, driving unmarked vehicles and wearing masks.
ICE recently received a national budget increase of $10 billion to more than $85 billion as part of the Trump administration’s budget bill was passed last month. In comparison, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) requested $10.1 billion from the U.S. for its 2026 budget.
“Everyone is scared. I’m scared, and I am a U.S. citizen. I was born in Los Angeles,” Castañeda said. “It’s scary for me to know that I am not even safe. I see people that are U.S. citizens that are being detained. I almost wonder if because I am an advocate or activist, am I a target?”
On April 2, ICE conducted a raid on Mount Baker Roofing in Bellingham, detaining 37 men, some of whom have already signed voluntary deportation papers. Castañeda told The Herald her organization is currently working with about 15 of the families affected by the raid.
Since then several others have been arrested by ICE in Whatcom County, including Vidal Palomar-Perez, 44, on June 17, who was taken by masked agents after they broke his car window without providing a warrant, according to his cousin, Vanessa Perez. When they did show him a piece of paper, it had someone else’s name and photo on it, Perez told The Herald.
These people are not even criminals,” Castañeda said. “I think that’s what the difference is now. There is just so much hate, and there is so much misinformation about what a person comes here for … I don’t like to make it about race, but it’s very much true that we do get racially profiled.”
She said there are white Europeans who overstay their visas but are not being targeted because of their appearance, and Hispanic people are the ones who continue to be targeted and called criminals and illegals.
“When we are here, we are treated as criminals,” Castañeda said. “No matter what we do, no matter how hard we work or how many jobs we work, no matter how much we pay in taxes because we do (pay taxes), we are always just labeled as that, and we will never be able to be anything different.”
Undocumented immigrants paid nearly $100 billion in taxes in 2022. Castañeda said her husband was in the U.S. for 14 years, and he paid taxes every year.
Castañeda was able to get her husband released from custody in 2018. He voluntarily moved back to Mexico to be with his mother when she was sick in May 2020. He is currently working to obtain a visa to come back to the U.S. — a multi-year process that has already taken more than five years.
This story was originally published August 26, 2025 at 12:41 AM.
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