by JR Valrey
Strategically, the system has conditioned us to believe that ICE kidnappings and the indefinite detentions of immigrants are not issues that the Black community should be concerned with.
First off, the conscious mind would recognize that the local police, the FBI and ICE are all different fingers of the same law enforcement infrastructure that can and has been used interchangeably between Black and Brown communities. There are many Black immigrants who are Haitian, Cuban, Colombian, Panamanian, Jamaican and more. There are also many Kenyans, Ethiopians, South Africans, Ghanaians, Ivoreans, Tanzanians and more from Africa.
Black people who are native to the United States have a responsibility to be welcoming to our brothers and sisters who are coming to the U.S. to escape the extreme poverty brought along by the U.S. having an imperialist grip on their home countries, which allows everyone living here to live in the luxury of what academia and the media call The First World, aka Babylon, aka The imperialist monster/master of the world.
Leo Oliveira Xavier is a Black man who immigrated to Oakland from his home in Brazil. He has spent some of his time in the Bay as a drummer with the internationally known, Oakland-based Samba Funk dance group. A year after his arrival, he was detained at a routine immigration check-in at the ICE office at 630 Sansome St. in San Francisco on Dec. 4 last year. We must fight to free Leo Xavier and all other immigrants, political prisoners and prisoners of war being held unjustly in U.S. concentration camps. We need to organize to stop ICE and the police in our neighborhoods. Here is Leo Xavier’s story.
JR Valrey: Who is Leo Oliveira Xavier? When did he come to the U.S.?
Colin Logan: Leo is a 33-year-old Afro-Brazilian and much beloved father, brother, son, friend and partner. His Bay Area community and chosen family can attest that he is a kind, gentle and caring person with a huge heart. Leo is a world-class drummer and music teacher. His contributions have profoundly enriched our communities in Oakland and in the Bay, where he has found home.
Leo is also a respected practitioner in Candomblé — a feminist, syncretic Afro-Brazilian religious tradition. As a ceremonial leader and cultural educator, Leo brings people of all backgrounds together to honor the ancestors and the divinity within the elements of nature, cultivating sacred spaces rooted in a collective ethic of care.
JR Valrey: How and when did you meet him?
Colin Logan: I met Leo in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, in his home neighborhood and community of Candeal, when I was an exchange student in high school. I became a volunteer violin teacher for kids in Candeal — and Leo was among my first students. We have stayed friends for the last 24 years, and he has become like a little brother to me.
As a former Quilombo of Afro-Brazilians who had liberated themselves from slavery, Candeal is known for its cultural legacy as a neighborhood of musicians — particularly drummers. Leo was raised in this musical milieu and, with mentorship from world-renowned singer-songwriter and percussionist Carlinhos Brown, has now brought this deeply rooted musical and cultural expression to his home in the Bay Area.
JR Valrey: What does it mean to sponsor somebody? How long have you been his sponsor?
Colin Logan: Being an asylum sponsor means ensuring that all of Leo’s needs are met and ensuring his well-being to the best of my abilities. As Leo’s sponsor and older brother, I am committed to fighting for his immediate release from ICE detention and back home to his community in Oakland and the Bay Area, where he has found safety and home.
JR Valrey: Can you talk about Leo’s work with Samba Funk?
Colin Logan: I introduced Leo to Theo Aytchan Williams with SambaFunk! at the beginning of 2025, and Leo quickly became the cultural arts organization’s lead drumming teacher. He has become integral to the group and is deeply missed by the entire group. He has also stepped in as lead percussionist for NDL, or Namorados da Lua (Moon Lovers in Brazilian Portuguese), another Bay Area Afro-Brazilian band, as well as Batuki and Samba da Terra.
JR Valrey: Can you tell the story of how, when and where Leo was confronted by ICE?
Colin Logan: Leo went to a routine immigration check-in requested by ICE at their San Francisco office at 630 Sansome St. on the morning of Dec. 4, 2025. ICE officers had already completed paperwork justifying his kidnapping. He was taken to Mesa Verde ICE Detention Center in Bakersfield, California, where he has now been held for over eight months.
JR Valrey: What kind of living conditions has Leo been living in while in the immigration concentration camps for the last eight months?
Colin Logan: He has been deprived of due process and has been denied bond hearings on multiple occasions. He has had an hour a day of outside time and very little access to a phone to be able to contact his loved ones and family members. The food is barely edible — sometimes containing bugs or larvae, other times being frozen or undercooked. The best food that Leo has had access to has been a cup of noodles, for which he is charged $5 at the commissary.
JR Valrey: How did you become aware of his living conditions?
Colin Logan: We have heard from Leo during our in-person visitations and over phone calls that the living conditions at Mesa Verde have been atrocious. Visitations are limited to only up to three people at a time for up to one hour, only during two possible short windows of time on Mondays and Saturdays. We have made the 12-hour round trip between Oakland and Bakersfield to visit Leo countless times.
JR Valrey: Has Leo’s family in Brazil been made aware of his current situation?
Colin Logan: Yes, his mother, his siblings, his cousins and his family are all praying and asking for his release.
JR Valrey: How can people reading this help?
Colin Logan: People can contribute to Leo’s GoFundMe campaign at https://www.gofundme.com/f/free-leo-from-ice-detention
JR Valrey: How can people stay in touch with the community to free Leo?
Colin Logan: People can sign up for the Action Network sponsored by ACUDIR – Alameda County United in Defense of Immigrant Rights — whose Anti-Deportation Organizing Committee has anchored the “Free Leo, Free Them All” Campaign, at bit.ly/freeleonow.
People can also follow ACUDIR and Community Movement Builders’ Oakland Organizing Committee on Instagram at @cmb_oakland and @acudir_alamedacountty
JR Valrey is editor in chief at the San Francisco Bay View and can be reached at JR@sfbayview.com