When state Sen. Liz Miranda told a gathering of constituents last week that Boston is under fire from ICE, she wasn’t exaggerating.
“The federal government has a target on us,” she said, speaking to 70-or-so people who crowded into her Blue Hill Avenue district office on Sept. 22 for training on how to react to ICE raids.
President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, launched a deportation initiative dubbed Operation Patriot on Sept. 6, targeting Boston and other municipalities the administration considers “sanctuary cities” because they aren’t fully cooperating with a push to ramp up deportations undertaken by the federal Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
As ICE agents have streamed into Boston neighborhoods with high concentrations of immigrants, some city residents have sought to intervene to protect others from deportation.
“You have rights regardless of your immigration status,” said Marley Frederique, community outreach and organizing manager for Lawyers for Civil Rights, in speaking to the gathering in Miranda’s office.
Frederique outlined the rights and responsibilities that US citizens and non-citizens have in her presentation.
ICE can’t enter a home, a workplace, or other private space without a warrant, Frederique said. While ICE agents will sometimes present a warrant of removal or deportation issued by the Department of Homeland Security, that document does not give them permission to enter a private residence or private area of a workplace. A judicial warrant giving ICE that right must be signed by a judge.
The name of the person targeted for deportation must be spelled correctly for the warrant to be valid. The address must also be correct and the date on the warrant cannot be issued more than 14 days prior to its execution. If the name or address is incorrect or if the warrant is out of date, it does not grant ICE agents access to private areas.
Frederique said people responding to ICE agents at the door of their home or at a place of work can ask agents to press the warrant against a windowpane or slide it under a door. If the warrant is not valid, respondents can say, “I do not give you permission to enter.
Frederique urged participants to consult lawyersforcivilrights.org for more detailed information.
Areas of public accommodation are not off-limits to ICE. This includes work areas such as waiting rooms in offices, or food service areas in restaurants. ICE agents do not have the authority to enter areas off-limits to the public, such as kitchens or storerooms in restaurants.
Locked entryways in apartment buildings are similarly off-limits to ICE agents unless they are invited in. Apartment owners or managers can post signs affirming that common entryways are private, Frederique said.
ICE agents are allowed to enter apartment buildings or work areas restricted to the public if invited in by apartment managers or business owners. Frederique stressed that while the laws are clear, reports indicate that ICE agents don’t always respect them.
“We’ve been noticing that protocol has been going out the window,” she said.
People who don’t have US citizenship are being targeted regardless of whether they have legal authorization to be here. In one such case, Paul Dama, a Nigerian restaurant manager on Dudley Street, was taken by ICE in June despite having an open asylum application process and legal authorization to work in the US. He was released by a judge last week.
For immigrants who fear they may be targeted by ICE, Frederique said, it’s best to have an immigration attorney on retainer and make sure family members, co-workers, and friends have access to the attorney’s phone number. Immigrants targeted by ICE are often moved to out-of-state facilities, making it more difficult to fight deportation. Having an immigration attorney on retainer can help immigrants remain in Massachusetts.
For those witnessing an ICE arrest, Frederique recommended that they record the interaction from a safe distance and make sure to get as much information as possible.
Bystanders who impede ICE agents in any way risk arrest for obstruction. They cannot, for instance, explicitly warn immigrants to remain inside their homes if ICE is present, but they can alert people to the presence of ICE.
“You can say, ‘I saw ICE on Blue Hill Ave.,’ but you don’t want to use direct language telling people to avoid an area,” Frederique cautioned.
In a workplace, employees cannot explicitly move immigrants into a private area to avoid capture by ICE agents, Frederique said.
“Moving them to a protected area could be construed as obstruction,” she told the gathering, but emoloyees could invite immigrants into a private area under the pretext of providing them a service. “If it’s for a different reason, okay.”
Frederique advised bystanders to remain calm and non-confrontational with ICE agents. Police in Worcester arrested a city councillor and a neighborhood resident and charged them with assault during a June confrontation with ICE agents who were taking an immigrant woman into custody, although multiple cellphone videos of the encounter showed neither laid hands on law enforcement officers.
“Anything can be construed as an assault,” Frederique cautioned. “If you’re standing too close to them and you accidentally spit on them while talking to them, that’s an assault.”
The training session came about after political consultants Malia Lazu and Jesse Mermell approached Sen. Miranda and requested that she provide a space for immigrants and immigrant activists.
Lazu said witnessing the ICE arrests spurred her to action.
“If they can take one person, they can take anybody,” Lazu said. “This is very chilling for me. Just because they’re taking immigrants now doesn’t mean were not all in their scope.”
Miranda said she plans to host more information sessions with Lawyers for Civil Rights in the coming weeks.
“We need to do this not only in Roxbury and Mattapan, but also in every neighborhood in this district,” she said.
