Ice targeted me for organizing, says farm worker who left US for Mexico

<p>Alfredo Juarez Zeferino spent a harrowing few months in Ice jail – and, under threat of deportation, chose to leave</p><p>Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino spends much of his days outdoors, harvesting bananas and hiking vast, bramble-laden trails. But for more than a quarter of 2025, he barely saw the sun. After being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in March, the farm-worker activist was placed in a detention center in Washington state, where he remained until he <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/16/headlines/farm_labor_organizer_alfredo_juarez_zeferino_ends_deportation_fight_after_4_months_in_ice_jail">agreed to voluntarily leave the US</a>.</p><p>“I probably would say five times, in the three months and a half I was in there, they offered me to go outside,” he explained on a Zoom call from his family farm in Guerrero, Mexico, where he has been for over a month.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/23/ice-deportation-us-mexico-farm-worker">Continue reading...</a>