EAST BOSTON—Candlelight, chants, and outrage filled a neighborhood park Sunday night as more than 100 people gathered to honor two immigrant activists now locked up by ICE — the very same activists who once fought to give illegal immigrants the right to Massachusetts driver’s licenses.

The vigil looked more like a shrine than a protest: candles flickered in the humid night air, orange and yellow flowers ringed an altar, and photos of Carlos Chang Barrios and Catalina “Xochitl” Santiago were propped up as supporters prayed and sang, GBH reported.

While mourners praised them as heroes, ICE officials had a different description: detainees now in federal custody after separate arrests earlier this month.

From drums to detention

Chang Barrios, 37, slipped into the U.S. from Guatemala in 2008 and settled in Lawrence. A fixture at immigrant rights rallies, he once banged on drums at marches pushing for the state’s license law for illegals. On July 29, he was picked up by immigration agents in Auburn, Maine, while heading to a construction job. He’s now sitting in Plymouth County’s ICE lockup.

“He’s never had a fight, never had a ticket,” cousin Josias Orozco said at the vigil, calling him a man of faith who volunteered at church. Orozco claimed Barrios was barred from calling a lawyer or his family for nearly three weeks after his arrest.

Cuffed at the airport

Santiago, a longtime Massachusetts organizer who moved to El Paso in 2020, was detained on Aug. 3 while boarding a domestic flight — even though she presented a DACA work permit. Her attorney insists her status is valid and she has no disqualifying criminal record.

Advocates described her as a powerful force in the driver’s license campaign. “She brought energy when we had no voice,” said Alicia Lopez of New Bedford.

DHS strikes back

The Department of Homeland Security didn’t mince words. In a statement, a senior official branded Barrios “an illegal alien… illegally employed for over a decade,” and urged undocumented immigrants to “self-deport.”

For activists and allies lighting candles in East Boston, the arrests were framed as an injustice. For critics, it looked like poetic justice: the same campaigners who once demanded licenses for illegal immigrants are now learning firsthand what it means to be on ICE’s radar.

The vigil may have been meant as a show of solidarity, but it doubled as a reminder of irony. The people who fought hardest to open the Registry’s doors to the undocumented are now the ones locked behind them.