This is an older report that I missed.Β Β But this is a school with children and according to witnesses ICE gang thugs acted like animals attacking people and assaulting children.Β Β Hugs
U.S. Border Patrol agents detain a person on the ground near Roosevelt High School during dismissal time on Wednesday in Minneapolis.
Kerem YΓΌcel | MPR News
Minneapolis Public Schools on Wednesday canceled classes district-wide for the remainder of the week βdue to safety concerns,β followingΒ the killing of a woman Wednesday by an ICE agent.Β The district said it was acting βout of an abundance of caution.β
The move came after officials at Roosevelt High School said armed U.S. Border Patrol officers came on school property during dismissal Wednesday and began tackling people, handcuffed two staff members and released chemical weapons on bystanders.Β
βThe guy, Iβm telling him like, βPlease step off the school grounds,β and this dude comes up and bumps into me and then tells me that I pushed him, and heβs trying to push me, and he knocked me down,β a school official, who spoke to MPR News on condition of anonymity said.Β
βThey donβt care. Theyβre just animals,β the official added. βIβve never seen people behave like this.βΒ
Greg Bovino, a U.S. Border Patrol commander, argues with protesters near Roosevelt High School during dismissal time on Wednesday.
Kerem YΓΌcel | MPR News
The school leader said armed officers with apparent Border Patrol insignia on their uniforms arrived at a street near the school in several SUV vehicles during dismissal on Wednesday afternoon. They broke out the window of a vehicle.Β
βThereβs a car that got hit. I donβt know how it got hit. They broke out the window,β the school official said. βThen different Neighborhood Watch, people, everybody, people, the staff in the school came out. And then they started coming on the property of the school and pushing people and tackling people and shooting pepper spray and pepper balls. And they handcuffed two of our employees.βΒ
Video shared with MPR News show armed, masked officers with apparent Border Patrol insignia on their uniforms dragging a person on a sidewalk outside of the high school and tussling with another person as bystanders blow whistles and shout.Β
A U.S. Border Patrol agent runs after a person near Roosevelt High School during dismissal time on Wednesday.
Kerem YΓΌcel | MPR News
The school official said some high school students were involved in altercations with officers. Many sheltered at a nearby library.Β
Kate Winkel, who lives in the neighborhood near Roosevelt said she saw the Border Patrol agents on her drive home from work and witnessed agents pull a person into one of their vehicles.Β
In a video shared with MPR News, a Border Patrol official is shown pushing 47-year-old Winkel to the ground after telling her to get out of the street.Β
Winkel said she witnessed agents in other physical confrontations with school staff and parents on and near school property.Β
βI think school property should be off-limits. I think our kids need to feel safe at school,β Winkel said. βThe federal government doesnβt need to attack schools.βΒ
Federal agents face off with protesters near Roosevelt High School during dismissal time on Wednesday.
Kerem YΓΌcel | MPR News
In an email sent to school families on Wednesday, school principal Christian Ledesma said the school βinstituted a lockout due to law enforcement presence outside of our school involving a vehicle that stopped near our buildingβ after the schoolβs regular dismissal time. Staff and students βwitnessed law enforcement engage with people at Roosevelt,β Ledesma added.Β
He said school counselors, social workers and district personnel would be available to any students who needed support.Β Β
Late Wednesday, district officials told staff and families in an email that all district-sponsored programs, activities, athletics and Community Education classes would be canceled and that it would collaborate with the City of Minneapolis on emergency preparedness and response.
If you go to the link 3 /4 of the way through the article it will open a page that details some of the abuse.Β Sorry I can’t post it as I couldn’t finish reading it.Β I started to get triggered.Β Been there made to do that.Β Β Hugs
Victoria LΓ³pez, Advocacy and Legal Director, ACLU of Arizona
Sandra Park, Former Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Women’s Rights Project
All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government impose criminal liability on correctional facility staff who have sexual contact with people in their custody. These laws recognize that any sexual activity between detainees and detention facility staff, with or without the use of force, is unlawful because of the inherent power imbalance when people are in custody. Yet, one immigration detention center is trying to avoid responsibility for sexual violence within its walls by arguing that the detainee βconsentedβ to sexual abuse.
E.D., anΒ asylum-seeker and domestic violence survivorΒ from Honduras, was sexually assaulted by an employee while she was detained with her 3-year-old child at the Berks Family Residential Center in Pennsylvania. At the time of the assault, E.D. was 19 years old.
She filed suit against the detention center and its staff for their failure to protect her from sexual violence, even though they were aware of the risk. The record in the case,Β E.D. v. Sharkey, shows that her assailant coerced and threatened her, including with possible deportation, while the defendants stood by and made jokes.
Although the employee pled guilty to criminal institutional sexual assault under Pennsylvania law, the defendants contend that they should not be liable for any constitutional violations. Their argument rests in part on their assessment that the sexual abuse was βconsensualβ and that they should be held to a different standard because the Berks Family Residential Center is an immigration detention facility rather than a jail or prison.
The ACLU, ACLU of Pennsylvania, and partner organizations filed anΒ amicus briefΒ this week supporting E.D., explaining that officials wield such tremendous control over the lives of those in their custody, including through coercion and exploitation, that consent to sexual contact cannot be freely given in these circumstances. We also discuss how sexual violence in custodial settings is a serious and pervasive issue, including in immigration detention. For many years, the ACLU, various advocacy groups, and immigrants themselves have reported on the unsafe conditions in immigration detention, including sexual violence and the retaliation that detained immigrants face when they decide to come forward with these violations.
A recentΒ investigationΒ into sexual abuse in immigration detention found that there were 1,448 allegations of sexual abuse filed with ICE between 2012 and March 2018. In 2017 alone, there were 237 allegations of sexual abuse in immigration detention facilities.
Other reports include aΒ 2014Β complaint documenting widespread allegations of sexual harassment at the Karnes County Residential Center, where more than 500 women were detained with their children. InΒ 2017, advocates filed a complaint on behalf of eight immigrants who recounted their experiences of sexual violence while detained in various ICE detention facilities across the country.
TheΒ Government Accountability OfficeΒ reported in 2013 that officials at immigration prisons and jails failed to report 40 percent of sexual abuse allegations to the ICE headquarters. After looking at 10 different detention centers and analyzing over 70 cases of sexual abuse, researchers found that only 7 percent of 215 allegations of sexual assault in immigration detention facilities from 2009 to 2013 were substantiated, calling into question the thoroughness of investigations as well as reporting and oversight mechanisms.
Sexual violence impacts immigrants across federal agencies that are charged with immigrant detention. Most recently in Arizona, the stateβs Department of Health Services, which licenses facilities that are used by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Serviceβs Office of Refugee Resettlement to detain migrant children, moved to revoke the license of Southwest Key, a nonprofit contractor that rakes in about a half a billion dollars to detain migrant children in facilities across the country. The state moved to revoke the groupβs license because Southwest Key failed to comply with required employee background checks.Β At least three former employeesΒ have been arrested for sexually abusing migrant children. One was convicted, and one of the facilities was closed down following allegations of staff abusing children.
These are not isolated cases. They clearly show that officials are not doing enough to detect and respond to incidents of sexual abuse in immigration detention. The result is that immigrants are put at serious risk for sexual violence while they are detained.
The Prison Rape Elimination Act was passed by Congress in 2003 to protect against sexual assault in prisons and jails across the country. It took the Department of Homeland Security until 2014 to finalize regulations implementing PREA. Even with those regulations in place, DHS PREA standards do not protect immigrants in all detention facilities because the agency has taken the position that those requirements can only apply when the agency enters into new contracts or renews or modifies old ones.
Rather than meaningfully addressing these endemic problems in immigration detention, the Trump administration continues to aggressively target immigrants and asylum seekers by stripping away legal protections, ramping up enforcement, and expanding immigration detention. E.D.βs case highlights the real need for greater protections against sexual abuse and more robust oversight and accountability measures in immigration detention, not less.
Please understand the horrific conditions these children are being held in.Β Bug and dirt filled food, guards in these concentration camps they are held in tell the kids not to waste their oxygen by complaining or making the guard deny them.Β While physical abuse and verbal abuse is a given there is no doubt that some sexual abuse is happening.Β One boy had appendicitis and the guards refused him treatment until he was throwing up in a hallway that they even dealt with him and even then they kept him from medical attention for another 6 hours.Β The boy barely survived.Β First they don’t see these brown children as people and second the government has stopped paying for the medical care of the detained people in their care.Β Hugs
Detainees held at the South Texas Family Residential Center wave signs during a demonstration in Dilley, Texas, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026.
A protest broke out Saturday at the South Texas family detention complex in Dilley, about 70 miles south of San Antonio, after guards abruptly ordered attorneys to leave while detainees β many of them children β poured into open areas of the facility chanting βLibertad,β or “Freedom,” according to an immigration attorney who witnessed the event.
Immigration attorney Eric Lee said he was at the Dilley facility for a confidential visit with clients β an immigrant family of six, including five children β when guards began shouting for everyone in the waiting area to leave, citing what they described as βan incident.β
As the Michigan-based attorney walked toward his car, he said he heard what sounded like βhundreds of childrenβ shouting, with voices he described as “high-pitched” and “urgent.” He said he could see children streaming from dormitory areas behind a chain-link fence and chanting βLibertad.”
Lee said clients he later spoke with told him the protest was triggered by concerns over the treatment of Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old who was taken into custody with his father in Minnesota earlier this week and transferred to the Dilley facility.
Lawmakers and advocates are calling for the childβs release, while the Department of Homeland Security disputes claims about how the boy was taken into custody and faces criticism over access to the facility.
School officials in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, have said federal agents took the child from a running car in the familyβs driveway and directed him to knock on the door of the home β an action the superintendent described as βessentially using a 5-year-old as bait.β
The Department of Homeland Security has disputed that account, saying agents did not target the child, were focused on apprehending the childβs fatherβwhom DHS said fled on footβand attempted to have the childβs mother take custody of the boy.
Lee described Saturdayβs action inside the facility as a peaceful demonstration, not a riot, and said the show of solidarity carried risk for detained families.
Lee said the protest unfolded against what he described as harsh day-to-day conditions inside the Dilley detention center. He characterized the facility as βa horrible, horrible place,β alleging that drinking water is βputridβ and often undrinkable, and that meals have contained βbugs,β dirt, and debris.
βThe guards are just as tough as the guards at the adult facilities.Β This is not a place that you would want to have your child be for even 15 minutes,β Lee said.
Lee said the site does not operate as βcivil detention,β arguing it functions like a punitive facility despite housing families.
CoreCivic, the private prison company that operates the site under federal contract, has previously said the facility is intended to provide an βopen and safe environmentβ with access to services such as recreation, counseling, and legal resources.
Texas Public Radio reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment on the disturbance and on Leeβs allegations regarding Liam Ramosβ treatment but had not received a response by Saturday evening.
The Dilley detention complex β known for years as the South Texas Family Residential Center β closed in 2024 and later reopened, as federal authorities expanded detention capacity for immigrant families, according to prior reporting and company statements.
TPR was founded by and is supported by our community. If you value our commitment to the highest standards of responsible journalism and are able to do so, please consider making yourΒ gift of support today.
There are videos at the link that doesn’t appear to embed.Β In each of these ICE unwarranted shootings we see that the ICE gang thug shooter was putting their fellow gang thugs in danger from the bullets.Β Also the videos clearly shot that Pretti was shot in the back and the gang thug ICE people were overjoyed and counting the bullet wounds as they made sure to get their stories straight for the bosses who would applaud their courage of ganging up on, beating a man on the ground and then shooting him in the back.Β Really brave souls.Β Β Hugs
Kristi Noem made public statements about Alex Pretti and details surrounding his fatal shooting. But the videos tell a dramatically different β and tragic β story.
Statement #1: βAn individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgunβ DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a news conference, addingΒ that the suspect was βbrandishingβ a firearm.
Video shows Pretti had no visible firearm in his hands or on his body in the minutes before he interacted with immigration officers but was using a cell phone to record immigration raids in the area.Β This isΒ allowable under the First Amendment, as long as it doesnβt interfere with law enforcement activity, such as an arrest.Β Β
The officers do not draw their firearms on Pretti, which would be standard training for how federal law enforcement should react if they see a suspect brandishing a gun.Β
TheΒ federal legal definitionΒ of βbrandishingβ is broad, stating that it doesnβt require the weapon to be directly visible, but that its presence is used to intimidate.Β There is no evidence from the video that Alex Pretti was using a gun for this purpose.Β Β
Statement #2:Β βThis looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement.β
One of the videos shows Pretti carrying a cell phone in his right hand and appearing to film immigration officers and agents in the area. Itβs not yet known if he had had previous interactions with the officers or if this was the first encounter. The officers push him back by his chest to the curb; Pretti continues to keep his phone up, filming the interaction.
In another video, he is seen trying to help up a woman who is steps away and whom a masked officer has pushed down into the ice on a curb. Pretti immediately steps between the two, putting his left hand near the officer, who then pepper sprays him.Β Pretti raises his left arm and then lowers it as he turns around toward the woman who has been pushed down, the officer now behind him as he knocks Pretti to the ground, joined by several other agents.
Statement #3:Β βThe officers attempted to disarm this individual, but the armed suspect reacted violently.β
Pretti is seen struggling at first when at least three officers knock him to the ground, eventually joined by four more, but appears to be largely held down with his stomach to the ground and his arms in front of his body. Several moments into the officersβ effort to detail and control Pretti, an officer can be heard on video calling out βgun,β apparently to make fellow officers aware. Within a second or two, an agent fires the first shot.Β Prettiβs body crumples onto the ground.Β
A source close to theΒ DHS probeΒ told MS NOW that Pretti had a firearm in his holster, which agents retrieved at some point in the interaction. Minneapolisβ police chief said Pretti was a legal owner of a weapon with a permit to carry it.
Statement #4: βFearing for his life and the lives of his fellow officers around him, an agent fired defensive shots.β
Video shows Prettiβs hands pinned in front of him on the ground until he is shot, with no evidence he reached for a weapon. Some video clips appear to show another officer reaching towards Prettiβs waistband, retrieving something with his hand that looks like a gun, and stepping away. At roughly the same moment of the officerβs movement away from the suspect and has retrieved with his hand an object that appears to be a gun, someone can be heardΒ saying βgun.β
The border patrol agent fires within a second or two of the officer retrieving this object. A total of ten shots were fired. In the aftermath of the shooting, however, video shows two officers desperately searching the dead manβs body and one yells emphatically, βWhereβs the gun?β One officer over the body β and itβs not clear which β yells, βI need scissors. I need someone to cut this shit,β as he tugs at the dead manβs clothes.Β
Multiple seasoned law enforcement officers told MS NOW that they have been unable to see the justification for the shooting. Some said the video of the officers searching for a gun on Prettiβs dead body suggests to them that the agent who shot Pretti did so believing he had a weapon on his person that was an imminent threat when a fellow officer said βgun.β
If that is true, the officer may have wrongly believed Pretti posed an active threat to his life and the life of others. Earlier video of the fracas suggests instead that the firearm had been safely retrieved and the threat was removed.
Former FBI agent Rob DβAmico said that simply hearing the word βgunβ does not authorize an officer in a scuffle to shoot to kill. βYouΒ have to see that gun be in a position for it to be used,β DβAmico said. βMany, many times Iβve been in situations like this, the gun has fallen on the ground and someone yelled βgun,β and we didnβt just blindly shoot the person.β
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian OβHara said inΒ an interview onΒ Face The NationΒ on Sunday that the videos make clear Pretti was simply engaging in his legal right to free speech, and did not start the confrontation with officers. He said the volume of shootings by βOperation Surgeβ officers makes plain that their protocols and methods are flawed and dangerous.Β
βThe Minneapolis Police Department went the entire year last year recovering about 900 guns from the street, arresting hundreds and hundreds of violent offenders, and we didnβt shoot anyone,β OβHara said. βAnd now this is the second American citizen that has been killed. Itβs the third shooting within three weeks.β
Oh my the criminal gang thugs with all the weapons and beating up / killing people are the victims because people disrespect them while local government won’t help them hurt more nonwhite people.Β Cry me a few more tears.Β WTF reality are we living in!Β Everything Bovino the Nazi wannabee gets all the facts wrong, but that is the intent.Β Β There is no more truth, justice, and the American way.Β Β It is gang thugs trying to get their gang to the top of the heap and the public is just canon fodder for them. That a member of the public can be present and video their illegal activity must mean they are a US hating domestic terrorist who failed to instantly obey the lawless gang thugs.Β Notice the last paragraph, they moved the shooters out of the state just like they did with Jonathan Ross who shot Renee good.Β It is to protect the thugs from state laws charging them with the crimes they are doing.Β HugsΒ Β
Gregory Bovino applauded his agentsβ actions in Minnesota, despite one citizen being killed by agents.
“We respect that Second Amendment right. But those rights don’t count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct and impede law enforcement officers,β Gregory Bovino said. | Angelina Katsani/AP
Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino on Sunday said his Customs and Border Patrol agents are βthe victimsβ afterΒ they shot and killedΒ 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minnesota.
In an interview with CNNβs βState of the Union,β host Dana Bash pointed out that Bovino had repeatedly referred to Pretti as a βsuspectβ as he defended CBPβs training and de-escalation tactics.
βWith respect, it feels as though in some ways youβre blaming the victim here,β Bash said.
Bovino replied, βThe victim? The victims are the Border Patrol agents. Iβm not blaming the Border Patrol agents. The suspect put himself in that situation.β
Bovino said that Pretti had βinjectedβ himself into a federal law enforcement operation and was βmore than likelyβ on the scene to assault officers.
The federal agents, Bovino added, βprevented any specific shootings of law enforcement. So good job for our law enforcement in taking him down before he was able to do that.β
Pretti was shot and killed Saturday morning as CBP agents continued to patrol Minneapolis streets as part of the Trump administrationβs immigration crackdown. He is the second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis to be killed by immigration officers in recent weeks. Renee GoodΒ was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officerΒ earlier this month in the city.
Bovino and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have questioned why Pretti was in an area where agents were on the scene to arrest a βviolentβ illegal immigrant and accused him of interfering with federal law enforcement operations.
βLetβs look at why he was there in the first place. Was he simply walking by and just happened to walk into a law enforcement situation and try to direct traffic and stand in the middle of the road, and then assault, delay and obstruct law enforcement? Or was he there for a reason?β Bovino said on Sunday.
Video footage of the moments leading up to the shooting and verified by several media outlets, including the New York Times, shows Pretti filming the scene with his phone. WhileΒ federal officials assert Pretti was holding a gun, video of the incident does not appear to corroborate the allegations. The analysis from the New York Times concludes that agents did not identify Pretti had a gun until about eight seconds after they had wrestled him to the ground.
While Pretti did hold a concealed carry license, video footage of the shooting from multiple angles appears to show Pretti holding a phone, not a gun, as he approaches a woman who had been shoved to the ground by agents.
βAre you saying itβs not okay for him to exercise his Second Amendment right, not to mention his First Amendment right to be there in the first place, and if you do you can be shot by federal law enforcement?β Bash asked.
βNo, I didnβt say that, Dana. I never said that,β Bovino replied. βWhat Iβm saying is we respect that Second Amendment right. But those rights donβt count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct and impede law enforcement officers.β
Bovino added he does not know if Pretti was unarmed at the time of the incident but said that agents believed he was in possession of one. βWe heard the law enforcement officer say gun, gun, gun. So at some point they knew there was a gun,β he said.
Video footage does not appear to show Pretti holding a gun as he tried to help the woman stand. Still, agents surround Pretti and force him to the ground before opening fire.
Bovino said he doesnβt know how many agents opened fire, but that those involved βwill more than likely be on administrative dutyβ and relocated out of Minneapolis.
What will it take to understand we are not the land of the free anymore.Β Government has been taken over by groups that don’t care about civil rights of the public.Β What is happening is fascism, an authoritarian take over of the government who have no concern of the rights of the people.Β Β They only care about their individual group’s goals.Β The wealthy want to rule, the white supremacists want a white only country where they judge everyone on how European white they think they are, the Christian nationalist want a theocracy want a country run by their own version of the religion, the maga cult simply wants to be rude crude 1950s thugs and not be called on it.Β Hugs
While I like the idea of people having integrity, it does seem like the government is being purged of people that want to do the right things, to be decent people.Β This government is corrupt and is run like a crime syndicate with a mob boss wannabee at the top.Β I think how fast these people took over the government and turned all the good that government can do upside down so that government has become the very engine of harm in our country.Β Hugs
It is clear they are not going after the worst of the worst but simply they are white supremacist trying to remove non-white people from the country.Β How is this making anyone safer?Β Β Hugs
Organizers say ICE agents have been targeting African nationals amid surge focused in Portland and Lewiston
A woman films a Homeland Security Investigations agent in Portland, Maine, on Friday.Β Photograph: Robert F Bukaty/AP
Three days into its immigration crackdown inΒ Maine, the Department of Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had arrested βmore than 100 illegal aliensβ.
In a statement to the Guardian on Friday, the DHS assistant secretary of public affairs, Tricia McLaughlin, said some of those taken into custody were βthe worst of the worstβ and had been βcharged and convicted of horrific crimesβ, but cited the same four examples it released earlier in the week.
Speaking to Fox News, Patricia Hyde, deputy assistant director of ICE, said the agency had compiled a list of 1,400 individuals in Maine it intends to target.
White House posts digitally altered image of woman arrested after ICE protest
Read more
Immigrant rights groups have been on alert as ICE concentrates its operation on Maineβs two largest cities, Portland and Lewiston. Organizers say agents have been targeting African nationals from Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola, many of them asylum seekers who have made the coastal state home in recent decades.
On Wednesday, a local ICE sighting hotline β organized and run by the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition βΒ saidΒ they received more than 1,100 calls, a 35% increase in calls from the previous day. Immigrants in Maine represent only about 4% of the stateβs total population, most of whom have legal status to live and work in the US, according toΒ a recent reportΒ by the Migration Policy Institute.
At a press conference in Portland on Thursday, Janet Mills, the stateβs Democratic governor, said theΒ Trump administrationΒ had not returned her calls since the operation began. She added that her office had received reports of people with no criminal record being detained and urged homeland security to be transparent in its actions, saying she would be βshockedβ if federal law enforcement located 1,400 individuals with criminal backgrounds.
βIf they have warrants, show the warrants,β she said. βWe donβt believe in secret arrests or secret police.β
Mills also described widespread fear in schools, workplaces and businesses that are losing employees who have either been detained or are not showing up, despite living in the state legally.
Earlier this week, a video by 28-year-old Cristian Vaca β an Ecuadorian immigrant living in Maine with valid immigration status β went viral online. In the footage, federal agents appear outside Vacaβs home in Biddeford, 18 miles south of Portland, where he lives with his wife and young son. In an interview with the Associated Press in Spanish through a translator, Vaca said that he approached the officers when they were taking pictures outside his house.
When Vaca refused to go outside,Β the video showsΒ one of the agents telling him that they will βcome back for your whole familyβ through Vacaβs screen door.
βI have been in this country since September 2023,β Vaca, who works as a roofer, told the AP. βI have immigration status β¦ the judge postponed my court date to another day. Now I have a new court date. I have my work permit. I have my social security number [sic].β
Local authorities also decried the scope of the federal immigration dragnet this week. The Cumberland county sheriff, Kevin Joyce, said that on Wednesday evening one of his corrections officer recruits was arrested by ICE agents.
βThis is an individual that had permission to be working in the state of Maine. We vetted him,β the sheriff said of the unnamed recruit.
Joyce was one of more than 100 national sheriffs who met with Trumpβs border czar, Tom Homan, last year. βThe book and the movie do not line up,β Joyce told reporters on Thursday. βWeβre being told one story, which is totally different than whatβs occurring.β
Later, Joyce said that ICE officials contacted him to say all detainees held at the Cumberland county jail were being moved on Thursday. In an interview withΒ the Portland Press Herald, he said βabout 50β people were removed from the jail. The DHS did not respond to the Guardianβs request for comment about where detainees are being held as Maine does not have a dedicated immigration detention facility.
The Maine Immigrants Rights Coalitionβs advocacy and policy manager, Ruben Torres, said that family members are now finding it βextremely difficult to be able to find their loved ones once they have been picked upβ.
The Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP), Maineβs only statewide immigration legal services organization said it had received several fearful calls as the crackdown continues. This includes a pregnant woman who reached out to ILAP because she was βterrified to leave her home to go to a medical appointmentβ. Another person called and said someone had βpulled the fire alarm in her building, desperately trying to save people from ICEβ. ILAP said that they received reports of teachers escorting immigrant children home from school who had agents follow them and push their way into an apartment building lobby.
βIt is clear the overall operation is anything but targeted,β said Sue Roche, ILAPβs executive director. βPeople are being racially profiled on the streets and in their cars. As is their playbook, ICE is doing everything they can to inflict maximum cruelty and chaos.β
In Lewiston, it was βhard to overstate the level of fear within the communityβ, according to the Democratic congressional candidate Jordan Wood, who is running to replace the outgoing US representative Jared Golden. βI have heard that as many as 20% of students at certain schools did not show up,β Wood, who was born, raised and lives in the area, told the Guardian.
He added that the community response to the ICE surge β from ensuring immigrants know their rights to sharing where agents have been spotted β has been hugely encouraging. βItβs important to just know the community that theyβre coming after wonβt stand idly by while our neighbors are terrorized,β Wood said.
At her press conference in Portland, Mills still wanted more information about the decision to target the Pine Tree state. βWhy Maine? Why now? What were the orders that came from above? Whoβs giving the orders?,β she said, adding that state officials have reached out to the Trump administration but still βhave no answersβ.
