Members of the Durham community connect over a Siembra bingo game at Siembra’s Fourth Amendment Workplace celebration on Sept. 6.
Maria Mejia, a philosophy professor at Elon University, first became involved with Siembra NC when she attended a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement verification training at a local church. She worked with organizers to plan a similar community preparedness session at Elon University in May 2025.
“I was connecting with students who were really concerned about this anti-immigration rhetoric, and not just rhetoric, but the raids that were happening,” Mejia said. “I knew that students at Elon wanted to do something, and they were upset about the fact that there weren’t a lot of spaces where this was being talked about.”…