Friday night, Siembra NC hosted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Watch Training in the Great Hall of the Living Learning Center.

As part of Siembra’s ICE Watch Training, if the organization receives a call of a potential ICE sighting, trained verifiers will go to the site. They then report back to Siembra, who sends a broadcast text message either debunking or confirming the sighting.

“Siembra’s goal is to be able to have a verifier respond to a call within 20 minutes,” said Kirstin Cassell, one of four trainers at the event.

All people involved in Siembra’s ICE Watches are volunteers. Besides adding to the number of verifiers, the trainings are meant to increase community safety and teach individuals what to expect when encountering ICE.

“Even when ICE has not come into a community, the fear has come into the community,” Cassell said. She added that one of the goals of President Donald Trump’s administration “is to get people to feel so scared that they just self deport, and it’s been really cool to see North Carolina say we’re not okay with that.”

The training highlighted knowing one’s rights, especially through the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

The First Amendment allows a person to record encounters with law enforcement and the Fourth Amendment protects against search and seizure of a private space. The Fifth Amendment both lets someone refuse to answer any potentially incriminating questions, and ensures due process during arrests and trials. The training emphasized an individual’s rights to film any law enforcement they witness and to deny law enforcement access to private spaces within businesses, two things that conflict with their constitutional rights.

Cassell wore a shirt with the words “Don’t talk to cops. Know your rights.”

Siembra’s ICE Watch Training curriculum also shed light on three things one should do in an ICE encounter: “Report,” “Document” and “Deter Violence.”

As Cassell explains, reporting refers to informing people of active operations, or that a location is safe. Documenting is recording any unlawful practice, especially for legal use.

She also said deterring violence is deescalating a situation so law enforcement does not have reason to claim an individual is a threat. The training curriculum said not to physically impede law enforcement or do anything that would cause more harm.

“We don’t have to break the law to achieve our goals. They’re the ones breaking the law,” Cassell said.

People who missed the training Friday can sign up for a future training session. According to the organization, anyone is encouraged to sign up if they can be calm around law enforcement, have access to a phone with a camera, can “sometimes drop what you’re doing” to travel about 20 minutes to a site and agree to deescalate violence and follow Siembra’s guidelines.

Siembra’s hotline is 336-543-0353. Anyone can call who is worried ICE is present in a location, would like access to resources, or knows someone who has been detained.