/ For years, activist Maru Mora-Villalpando has organized hunger strikes to protest conditions at an immigrant detention center in Washington state. By 2017, she'd gotten the attention of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One high-ranking ICE officer described her as an "instigator" in an internal email. Another responded that Mora-Villalpando was a "well-known local illegal alien," and suggested that trying to deport her might "take away some of her 'clout.'" A few weeks after those emails, ICE placed Mora-Villalpando, who was born in Mexico, in deportation proceedings. For immigrant rights advocates, that email exchange is vindication of what they've been saying for years: that ICE deliberately retaliates against activists.