Sheila Arias
Me
Overview
Reporting in progress.
Last year, Sheila Arias was driving home after dropping her son off at school. She then received a message in a community group chat that sent her circling back, "La Migra esta en Durham". Near her son's school, she noticed vehicles that didn't look like the police cars she knew. These were different. They were tinted, and conspicuously out of place being parked under a bridge on Cornwallis Road. Her son is a U.S. citizen. And so are his brown-skinned classmates, but she went back anyway.
Sheila Arias is North Carolina's campaign director for MomsRising/MamásConPoder. She has known a feeling of fear since she came to Durham from Mexico in 1996. As a young teenager, her mother was afraid to let her and her sister go out to play, afraid that immigration enforcement would take her two girls. Thirty years later, Arias, a U.S. citizen herself, fears what her mother did for her. However, today, Arias isn't staying inside anymore. She doesn't let fear keep her quiet. Now she is a trusted community leader in the Spanish-speaking coummity who helps shape policy at local, county, and state levels. She helps families living with that same fear get support from programs that provide it.
On October 1, 2026, over 20,000 North Carolinians lost coverage to Medicaid, many of whom are living in Arias's community. She visits families to educate them on the changes in coverage. And she visits with doctors and policy makers to share their experiences.
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