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Late in the afternoon is a good time to take in the section of the near North End that is the heart of New Bedford’s Central American community.
On the Avenue, folks are doing errands at the many shops and eateries that advertise themselves as catering to Guatemalan tastes.
A block away, at Riverside Park, every evening the soccer field is home to four or five groups of young Latinos playing half-field around the nets. Meanwhile young families, their Indigenous features like a map of their ancient civilizations, gather around the tots’ playgrounds, just mom, or mom and dad watching together, while their pre-schoolers release their energy.
It’s not like the North End Mayans and Hondurans, Salvadorans and Dominicans are new to New Bedford. They have been here, documented and undocumented, for decades now. About 10,000 undocumented people reside in New Bedford, according to the most recent estimate provided by the Immigrants’ Assistance Center.
Some of them lived through the big raid at the Michael Bianco factory in the South End 18 years ago. Others watched as some of their compatriots got in trouble with the law and ended up getting deported.
But never ever, never ever in New Bedford has there been a time like the past five months, when Central American men, and they were all men, have been, out-of-the-blue, literally scooped up off the street by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Well, it’s not just the streets. In at least one home where there were minors present, ICE officers literally rammed through an inside door to get at those they suspected of being in the country without papers. And then pointed a gun at the head of an innocent teenager.
The arrests started almost immediately after Donald Trump’s second inauguration.
One of the earliest New Bedford abductions — and that’s what they feel like, abductions — took place on Feb. 10 at Guatemala Music and Fashion on the Avenue, a storefront whose former owner had been convicted about a year ago of selling fake IDs.
Yes, fake IDs are what undocumented immigrants use to get jobs after they’ve fled lives of grinding poverty and violence in their home countries. With those fake IDs, many of them pay into federal benefits like Social Security and Medicare that they will mostly never be able to collect.
So some 10 ununiformed ICE agents descended on this store, asked everybody for papers and then detained the one person who did not have them. So much for the administration’s claim that this is all about going after hardened criminal immigrants.
This is not the way deportation actions have been conducted in the past. Former President Barack Obama, who actually presided over more deportations than President Trump, followed regulations targeting the perpetrators of serious crimes. The second Trump administration, however, has loosened those practices to allow for detaining people for minor crimes, including a simple misdemeanor of a first-time crossing of the border without permission.
The unannounced visits by ICE agents have only gotten more disheartening as weeks turned into months.
Three of the workers who wipe down cars at Minit Man Car Wash (the highest-quality service in the city) were taken away as three other workers ran from the scene. Two seafood house workers were arrested in the early morning as they sat in their car with coffee and pastries before heading to their plant. Two of three painters waiting in front of the Market Basket plaza to be taken to a job were abducted when they could not show papers.
Two of those abducted have serious medical problems: one has diabetes and another is waiting for a kidney transplant. It doesn’t matter. The point of what’s going on is to pick people up, serious criminals or not.
Yes, some of those who have been arrested have had dismissed charges for operating under the influence or domestic abuse or assault. A couple have been convicted of such charges. These are certainly serious matters, but they are not the sort of things that Americans, and even immigrants, are normally hauled off the street over, especially since they have been dismissed by a court.
What’s going on with ICE in New Bedford is mainly about power — aggressively checking to see who has papers and who doesn’t. It’s certainly not just looking for someone who had done a serious crime like murder, rape, drug dealing. So far crimes of that sort do not seem to have been perpetrated by most of those who have been picked up in New Bedford. No, ICE seems to be using searches for lower-level crimes as an excuse to pick up anyone who originally came to the country illegally.
And why do they come illegally? Because there are not nearly enough visa slots for low-skilled workers from Latin American countries who want to come legally.
We learned how far ICE would go the weekend of March 21 after a big roundup across the state in which 370 people were detained. In New Bedford, where at least eight were detained that weekend, that’s when the agents rammed open the door at the Sawyer Street apartment.
Showing leadership, Superintendent Andrew O’Leary, at a City Hall rally protesting the violent action, lamented the high school students who had to witness the raid. “On March 21, my sons woke up safe and warm and went to school,” O’Leary told the rally. “Later that day, I learned that some of our students woke up to terror.”
Perhaps the most unnerving stop of all the New Bedford arrests so far was the one that occurred April 14 on Tallman Street.
An ICE agent violently shattered the window of a car in which Juan Francisco Mendez and his wife, Marilu Domingo Ortiz, were sitting.
The Guatemalan couple had told the agents — who had suddenly blocked their egress as they tried to drive from their home — that they would get out of the car as soon as their lawyer arrived.
Mendez, who has no criminal record in Massachusetts, is awaiting a hearing on whether he can obtain legal status on his wife’s asylum residence. After the agent broke the window with an axe, Mendez was dragged out of his vehicle and sent to a New Hampshire county jail. It was a month before his lawyers could obtain his release even though he had been charged with nothing more than illegal entry in the U.S. on a first offense.
Some said the agents were actually looking for a different man, someone named Antonio. The ICE agents didn’t care; they found Mendez and just apprehended the man in front of them. A first offense of illegal entry into the U.S., by the way, is considered a criminal misdemeanor and subsequent entry a criminal felony. When did we start dragging people out of their cars in this country for this kind of first offense?
O’Leary is one of the singular public officials in New Bedford who has stepped forward during this season of disappearances. Congressman Bill Keating, who demanded federal officials explain the violent arrest, is another.
Mayor Mitchell has decried the lack of information from federal officials to this kind of violence, but a peaceful couple subjected to this kind of arrest on a public street calls out for a stronger statement from the mayor. One would have expected some sort of statement from the city councilors and state legislators, but with the exception of Rep. Chris Hendricks, whose minority-majority district includes the Central American enclave and who attended the City Hall rally, the local lawmakers have largely sat silent.
On ICE’s website, you will find a list of head shots of immigrants from around the country, many of them charged with sexual assaults of minors and others with fraud or drug dealing. But what you won’t find is ICE drawing attention to all the innocent people detained, which in New Bedford has been nearly all cases.
You also won’t find the Central American men apprehended in New Bedford who have committed no crime beyond their original entry into the country. You won’t find the names Juan Francisco Mendez or Marvin Yobani Chitic Us there. They — as with many others detained in New Bedford — had no serious criminal record. However, you will find information about several who have pleaded guilty to illegal entry and have now been deported.
Here’s the truth: These abductions in New Bedford and elsewhere are performative. They are meant to get the attention of both the immigrant community and the media.
The purpose is not to try to round up serious criminal migrants, or to address the country’s broken immigration system. No, they are meant to terrify good, generally law-abiding people into self-deporting, going back to where they came from, which in the case of most brown-skinned immigrants who have come to New Bedford means Central America.
Every indication is that the Trump administration intends to keep on this path. We are in for a long hot summer of chaos in New Bedford’s immigrant neighborhoods.
Email Jack Spillane at jspillane@newbedfordlight.org.
It feels like a nightmare watching these raids. As Mr. Spilane pointed out, they have nothing to do with making our community safer, and everything to do with terrorizing families who work hard, and contribute to our local economy.
It absolutely sickens me to read posts on social media celebrating the cruel actions of ICE.
How does one become so full of hate, so cruel, and completely lacking in empathy.
I want to ask those ICE supporters to provide specific examples of how the presence of non-violent undocumented workers harm them.
Their tired old mantra of “They’re getting everything free. They are draining our system. They don’t pay taxes while I struggle to get by,” is patently false and is easily disputed with some simple research.
But, facts do not matter to those haters. Bigots’ agendas are not served by the truth.
This is an age-old playbook used historically by folks who assert their professed superiority while their actions clearly demonstrate their innate shortcomings and insecurities.
My remarks will undoubtedly be met with insults and name-calling because that is all they know how to do.
Your remarks are 100% correct. What we are seeing now on a daily basis is just cruelty for the sake of cruelty. I am sickened by it, and by the lack of outrage and action by our local elected officials.
I just went on the Fox News website and it was like a visit to another planet—no mention of any of the above and more twisted, incredibly distorted news. This is where so many Americans are getting their news and it is run by a handful of oligarchs who are raping the world to line their pockets. Someday, I believe they will be toppled, but in the meantime, the poorest, most needy
people in the world are being targeting as the enemy. Pretty sad. What would Jesus have to say about this?
I “mostly” agree overall. If they are criminals they go. No matter the when, where, way they are apprehended and yes masked or unmasked. Uniformed or not. Unmarked vehicle or not.
The next to go would be if they are living off the government without contributing to society.
Last, those contributing should be forewarned to start the process to become a US citizen or risk being deported.
I would caution any member of government, the press or special interest group about crying about what is happening, because the daily headlines nationwide are proving you wrong more often than not.
This rhetoric like most from the left and advocates fails to address the fact that most people have broken the law by illegally migrating here, or who have overstayed their immigration benefit. What is your message to those who won’t break the law and illegally migrate to the US and are aching to, but at the same time are too respectful of our laws? Is the message thank you for abiding by our laws so other’s don’t have to?
Yes the immigration laws in the US are broken, but you don’t fix a problem by confounding the problem. Ninety-two percent of those seeking asylum are refused an immigration benefit based on the lack of evidence they provide that they are fleeing violence and strife. They are fleeing poor economies in their home country plain and simple. Very reasonable, but unjustifiable to break US immigration laws. You can come up with a myriad of reasons why people illegally migrate and should be allowed to stay, and many of them are also reasonable….but they discount and are just an attempt to justify the original act of illegal entry, and in some cases reentry after deportation once or twice before, or overstaying a visa.
The government has made it a point not to continue to be a magnet for those “abducting” or have abducted our country illegally. Illegals who have taken the chance know and live with the fact that removal was/is always a possibility. That time has come. The responsibility is on those who have made the decision to break our immigration laws, not on those enforcing them.
well said
Here’s a question that seems to have gone unasked: Who are these ICE officers? Their combat vests, if they carry any identifier at all, often simply say, “POLICE.” Beyond that, I have occasionally seen “FBI” labelled vests, and even “IRS” labelled vests, government agencies that really shouldn’t have anything to do with immigration enforcement. The officer who smashed the window in the Juan Francisco Mendez abduction was wearing a badge, but on his belt, mostly obscured by clothing and equipment. Under that vest he wore jeans and a hoodie (uniforms optional, apparently). Beyond that, no law enforcement agency identifiers at all. So, who are these officers? Are they working for ICE directly, or through other agencies? Honestly, they look to be low rent mercenaries or bounty hunters, if not down-right thugs.
Have you heard of undercover police work? You’re clearly uniformed because there have been many large scale raids across America with federal agents from many different federal agencies including FBI, ICE, ERO, CBP, and more. Also, outside the Deep Blue liberal socialist states, the local and state police, and county sheriff’s also assist in Immigration raids.
Beautifully and accurately written.
Great job ICE, you along with DHS, FBI, INS, and other federal agencies are doing exactly what President Trump promised, and the exact opposite of what the liberal far left Democrats oppose.
I don’t care how many visa applications are available, and how many are wanted, and regardless of whether it’s a misdemeanor or a felony, it’s a crime for anyone cross American borders and take advantage of free treatment in the ER, or working in jobs people continue to state “Americans don’t want these jobs”, to all of you who have that mindset, tell me, who did those jobs before illegal immigrants invaded our nation?
For all of you who support these illegal immigrants, why don’t you give them a job, let them sleep in your home, and make sure you cover all their medical costs, and the added costs to the tax payers for every illegal immigrant enters our school system at no cost to thier families, the burden is on the tax payers, and we’re tired of it already.
Since Superintendent O’leary is in favor of illegal children with tax payers forced to pay the bill, why don’t you tell us how much you’re donating from your salary to provide all the needs of the illegal immigrants?
Boohoo we are all angry about criminals living in our country illegally. The USA has had and still has immigration laws covering entry into our country but the liberal Democrats want to change that. So go ahead pass new legislation! Won’t happen because most voters don’t agree with that. They spoke last November by voting, and immigration was a big reason the left lost. Any one who came to this country undocumented, crossed the border illegally, over stayed a visa, knows they broke the immigration law when they came here. So expect to suffer the consequences now or sometime in the future. I have no sympathy for anyone who knowingly break our laws, and then whines when law enforcement does their job and arrests them. Time for the return of law, and order in America and I for one are looking forward to it.
You gloss over the fact that every one has not only violated our border laws but has comitted identity fraud by using stolen/fake social security numbers and identifies, often having multiple ID’s, Many use these stolen ID’s to collect benefits we pay for that are meant for American citizens. Sorry, but if I broke into Portugal and was leaching off their welfare system and was caught, I fully expect them to deport me. I also remember my parents spending money they could not afford to bring relatives here LEGALLY and ensured they had jobs, housing and support once they got here. Not one of them collected a penny in benefits. Spare me the bleeding hearts Jacko
The first mistake was skipping the line and entering the country illegally. The second was in bringing your family and minor children. You put them at risk for deportation and an uprooting of their lives. Self deportation would be the best option. Trump and the administration is doing exactly what they were elected to do, albeit more slowly that many would like.
Not much has been said about the private prison corporations that have contracted with our government to house these detainees, nor has much been said about the government officials who have worked as agents for these private prisons prior to receiving their cabinet appointments. One of the major prison corporations contracted by ICE is the GEO Group
During the Senate confirmation hearings earlier this year, information about the current Attorney General’s work as an agent for the GEO group was revealed. ( 1)
The Senate has recently sent her a letter asking her to recuse herself from immigration activities because of this conflict of interest. (2)
The current Border Czar also previously worked as an agent for the GEO Group before being confirmed . (3)
The GEO Group contributed more than half a million dollars to the 2024 presidential campaign. (4)
After the election, GEO received multi-million dollar contracts to house thousands of detainees. This includes the following: A 15-year, $1 billion contract for its Delaney Hall Facility in Newark, New Jersey, expected to generate $60 million annually.A contract for a facility in Baldwin, Michigan,projected to bring in $70 million annually.The Karnes ICE Processing Center contract in Texas expecting $79 million in the first year. GEO is also expanding its capacity at various facilities to house more ICE detainees.(5)
GEO has previously profited from the work of detainees, paying them $1.00 a day. (6)
Detainees have reported overcrowding, sleeping on the cement floor, illness and medical conditions being ignored, and poor nutrition (7)
Congress has the right to enter ICE facilities without notice and has made attempts to visit these sites and address the problems. (8)
ICE has acknowledged this right but still requires advance notice and restrictions on visits .(9)
I have not even mentioned the thousands of government employees from various agencies and the Justice Department that have been assigned to ICE for these detention raids. They are either having to do their jobs in addition to ICE work or having to neglect their jobs. (10)
Our taxes are paying for these conditions that people are being subjected to, often without due process. For my tax dollars, I expect due process and adequate oversight . On June 14, there will be opportunities for us to express our opinions in peaceful protest. In New Bedford, there will be a NO KINGS Rally at Buttowood Park from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
Below are links to sources used for this opinion.
(1)
The National Immigrant Justice Center submitted a statement for the record opposing the nomination of Pamela Jo Bondi to be attorney general of the United States. NIJC recommended that senators oppose the nomination based on Ms. Bondi’s problematic role as a lobbyist for the country’s largest private prison company, GEO Group, as recently as 2019.
https://immigrantjustice.org/blog/nijc-opposes-nomination-of-pam-bondi-to-be-attorney-general-of-the-united-states/
(2)
Senate Letter to AG Bondi:
Dear Attorney General Bondi: I write to raise serious concerns regarding your potential conflict of interest related to the GEO Group’s expanding role in the Trump Administration’s immigration detention efforts ……
2025-05-02 Letter to AG Bondi re. GEO.pdf
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2025-05-02%20Letter%20to%20AG%20Bondi%20re.%20GEO.pdf
(3)
Tom Homan’s financial ties to private prison locking up immigrants raise questions
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-border-tom-homan-private-prison-immigrants-rcna209544
(4)
Private Prison Behemoth is the first corporation to max out to Trump.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/private-prison-behemoth-is-first-corporation-to-max-out-to-trump/
(5)
Googling “post 2024 election contract geo group” yielded an AI summary of the contracts and amounts awarded to the GEO group
(6)
An ICE Contractor Is Worth Billions. It’s Still Fighting to Pay Detainees as Little as $1 a Day to Work.
https://www.propublica.org/article/geo-group-ice-detainees-wage
(7)
In recorded calls, reports of overcrowding and lack of food at ICE detention centers
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/05/nx-s1-5413364/concerns-over-conditions-in-u-s-immigration-detention-were-hearing-the-word-starving#:~:text=J.%20is%20one%20of%20the,deaths%20have%20been%20in%20Florida.
(8)Congress must continue to demand access to ICE detention facilities .
https://immigrantjustice.org/blog/congress-must-continue-to-demand-access-to-ice-detention-facilities/
(9)
ICE prison visit protocol for oversight (recently published)https://www.ice.gov/doclib/detention/iceFacilityVisitationCongressional.pdf
(10
)Members of other agencies are getting detailed to assitst ICE while Justice Department personnel shift to immigration focused teams:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/ice-operation-trump-focus-immigration-reshape-federal-law-enforcement-rcna193494
Great column. This is why we need a free press.
There aren’t enough visas for all the people in Central America to come to the United States, so that justifies violating US immigration laws entering America illegally, then buying a fake ID, and other documents so they can get a job and work, and live in America?
And that makes ICE, and citizens who are against illegal immigrants the bad guys? You people who support illegal immigrants are ridiculous, and you’re part of the problem, but President Trump has only been in office for 5 months, so prepare yourselves because a lot more illegal immigrants will be picked up and deported, just as they should be, and legislation is currently being written that will penalize property owners who rent apartments or business space to illegal immigrants, and companies who hire and employ illegal immigrants.
If they came in legally, they wouldn’t have a problem
We are objecting to the lack of due process and the inhumane conditions they are being subjected to in the for-profit prison gulags to which they are being sent. We are objecting to the obvious conflicts of interest that exist in this administration concerning these for profit prisons and immigration policy now being conducted by members of this administration at the behest of this president. (He may have presidential immunity while in office, but that immunity does not apply to them.) We ae objecting to the pretext of detaining “criminal gangs, rapists, etc,” while what we see are people being arrested on the way to work, or at immigration offices ,often with family members, for annual status check-in. ICE may be getting some criminals, but most of the ones we are seeing have no prior offenses, or minor offenses that have often been dismissed. Many people are being swept up in Gestapo -like raids by officers who are often masked, and borrowed from other agencies, leaving their other government work to do these mass raids. The public is being told little about the lack of due process, the conditions in the detention centers or the barriers that have prevented some of our congressional representatives from seeing the inside of these prisons or the detainees. Congress has the right to enter without notice, but is being required by the administration to give notice and often denied entry. We are objecting to the use ofprotest as an excuse to send the military into states and cities which have authority over their own police and national guard units. The Los Angeles police chief has said publicly that they do not need the military, and that the majority of protestors have been peaceful. As of last night, they had only arrested 50 people in a city of ten million. This administration is working its way towards invoking the Insurrection Act so that it can then jail anyone it wants without due process. Absolute power us what this administration wants. Those prisons are not only being built for criminal gang members. This president has expressed the desire to see his political opponents and anyone who openly disagrees with his policies jailed. He is not joking, as many of his supporters think he is. He means it. We all need to stand up for our constitutional rights. That is why people will be protesting on Saturday, June 14th, as part of the National NO KINGS Day of Protest. We support our military, but we do not support spending millions of dollars on a soviet -style show of military force when we are cutting money from Medicaid and vital social services. We fought our revolution to free ourselves from the tyranny of the King of England. We are a democratic republic with a constitution that protects our rights. Due process rights apply to all who live here, not just citizens. If we let this administration deny due process rights to non-citizens, we will be giving them up for ourselves. The NO KINGS rally in New Bedford will take place at Buttonwood Park on Saturday, June 14, from 11:00-5:00 P.M. There is also another at Fairhaven High School for those who live closer. Peace be with you all and Keep Hope Alive!