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BURLINGTON — Juan DeLeón Mayic and his son, Diego DeLeón Lucas, stood yards away from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Boston Field Office Building just before 8:30 a.m. on a chilly Tuesday morning.
Mayic, 49, seemed unfazed by the prospect that lay before him as dozens of demonstrators and their signs calling on ICE to show compassion to the pair gathered in the parking lot at Burlington Mall across the street from the ICE office. The call for solidarity and support issued through emails, social media and texts the night before would become the first action of its kind during the 25th straight week of protest outside the facility.
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A political asylee from Guatemala with a valid U.S. work permit, Mayic told The Light he had been doing yearly check-ins since he arrived in this country. A search of criminal records at New Bedford District Court found a 2022 charge dismissed in less than a day for a miscellaneous misdemeanor of violating a municipal ordinance.
“Today is my appointment and I came to fulfill my obligations because I want to respect the law,” Mayic told The Light in Spanish minutes before entering the building. “I heard that there were people out there offering moral support [to immigrants] so I requested it.”
For Lucas, 23, the moment was a little more fraught. An asylum applicant under his father with a valid U.S. work permit, he said he did not know he had an appointment until their lawyer called last week. A search of Massachusetts records at New Bedford District Court revealed no prior arrest records for Lucas.
“I feel good and thankful for the people here with us today,” he said in Spanish. “But I’m worried about what will happen to my mother and sisters if they take us in.”
Mayic, who recently recovered from a stroke, took one last look at the supporters and offered a few more words.
“These are people with good hearts who are supporting us immigrants,” he said. “I am very grateful for them.”
“I feel good,” he added. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m just following the rules to stay in this country.”
He and Lucas then went up to the front doors with two women, one of whom offered to volunteer as a Spanish interpreter. A masked agent allowed only Mayic and his son entry.
The now 30 or so people then settled in to wait.
Conditions at Burlington
The ICE Boston Field Office in Burlington has been open for more than a decade.
Shortly after President Donald Trump took office and his promised mass deportation campaign began, the facility came underscrutiny when detainees started to describe the conditions: lack of access to showers, poor quality food, freezing temperatures with no beds, and even a lack of sanitary pads.
Indeed, complaints of conditions at the ICE facility had become so frequent that the Burlington Town Meeting approved a resolution Monday night calling for ICE to cease long-term detentions at the facility. The resolution also allowed local, state and federal authorities to take “corrective action” regarding conditions there. A slide presentation presented at the meeting by Town Meeting member Phyllis Neufeld, who put forward the proposal, cited The Light’s reporting.
New Bedford resident James Symonds said he was spurred to action after he heard press reports about conditions at Burlington as well as violations of civil and due process rights committed by ICE agents here and throughout the country.
“I got involved right after Rümeysa [Öztürk] was taken,” said Symonds, referring to a Turkish Ph.D. student at Tufts University detained by masked ICE agents on camera in Somerville in March. “It took me a while to get tapped in locally.”
But he did.
Symonds said he has driven several immigrants to their appointments in Burlington, waking up at 3:30 a.m. to allow 2.5 hours of travel time to make sure they arrive by 7:30 a.m. – a full hour before their appointment.
“He slept a little bit in the car,” Symonds said, referring to Mayic. “Which is good because we don’t know what lies ahead.”
Symonds said he was tapped to drive Mayic and Lucas after another driver said they were afraid of how ICE might react.
Symonds was not the only one who learned of the protest on short notice.
“At 7 o’clock last night I got an email that was forwarded to me asking food people to support a father and son from New Bedford,” said Eve Coffey, a Winchester resident and member of Winchester Indivisible, part of a nationwide network of progressive groups. “I said I was free because I think it’s important to bear witness to what ICE is doing.
“What they’re doing is just wrong.”
Phil Conley, of Winchester, carried a sign that read; “For Juan & Son: Respect, Due Process, Compassion.” He said he printed it out at 8 a.m. before gluing it onto the cardboard and attaching the sign to a pole.
“I’ve been here before and apparently some show of solidarity can be useful,” he said. “I do believe that there needs to be policies around immigration and those policies need to be enforced.
“However, the enforcers need to act in accordance with due process and with some compassion.”
Todd Palmer, a Shrewsbury resident and volunteer with the Greater Assabet Indivisible Network which organizes a protest outside the office on Thursdays, said he has been attending demonstrations at least once a week for months.
“I’m here because I am ashamed,” he said. “I’m here to use my white privilege as a shield for those who can’t be here.”
He said he was aware of what he described as abuses inside the facility and those being carried out by ICE in general. He said during at least three protests he had recited The Light’s reporting on the conditions of immigrants in detention and the weeklong travails of Pascual Cuin González.
“A lot of these stories are not what [Americans] are about,” he said. “They want everyone to be afraid.”
He added that though he may not be able to prevent someone’s detention, just demonstrating was critical.
“The easiest way to lose your rights is to not exercise them,” he said.
Disappointment and perseverance
The crowd grew to about 40 people within an hour after Mayic and Lucas had entered the building. Around then, Maribel Mero, a woman in the asylum process from Ecuador who lives in Somerville, stepped out the doors. She had just had her check-in and made her way to the demonstrators on the grass.
“¡Muchas gracias!” she said in Spanish. “Thank you for the support.”
She told The Light she had been in the country for about a year and a half and said she appears for check-ins every six months. This was the first time she said she experienced fear on her way in.
Demonstrators outside the Burlington ICE facility hold signs protesting ICE and showing support for detained immigrants. Credit: Eleonora Bianchi / The New Bedford Light
“I came here for my appointment but my heart was jumping out of my chest,” she said, before heading to work. “I didn’t feel this way before, but we weren’t being persecuted before either.”
About 30 minutes later, Symonds approached the doors. He spoke with a guard for about five minutes before making his way toward the group, head bowed down, his hands in his hoodie pocket.
“They’re currently both being detained,” he said, disappointed. “Now we have to call his family.”
Several minutes later, the group disbanded and returned to the Burlington Mall parking lot across the street where they had originally met. There, Leah Leman Waldron, pastor of the Park Avenue Congregational Church in Arlington, broke the news to the group.
“We thank you so much for being here to support Juan and Diego and for bearing witness,” she said. “They won’t be coming out today.”
As the members disbursed, Palmer took a moment to compose himself and reflect on the morning’s events.
“I’m disappointed,” said Palmer. “I’m not surprised. At this point it takes a lot to surprise me.
“We hope to get them back.”
Before he left, The Light asked Palmer how he hoped to make that happen.
“By coming back here,” he said.
Kevin G. Andrade can be contacted at kandrade@newbedfordlight.org
Anastasia Lennon contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This story was updated on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, to correct the year in which a misdemeanor charge for Juan DeLeón Mayic was issued and dismissed.
Wow, what a surprise another article about Illegal Immigration.
Donald Trump lied when he said that he would be deporting criminals. The people being taken are workers or students. Many of them are taken while they are in court, trying to follow the process. They are taken violently. They are not told why they’re being taken and they are put in what amounts to concentration camps. They are sent to countries that they have no connection to or back to their own countries that they fled due to violence and danger. Despite being granted asylum for the dangerousness they faced in their own countries, their asylum is heartlessly snatched away. ICE and Homeland Security are out of control. My heart aches for them. If yours doesn’t, you have lost your humanity.
Anyone who entered America without requesting, and being granted asylum for the 3.5 years Democrats opened the border is in fact a criminal.
ICE has orders to fill a 3,000 per day detention/deportation quota. This administration has budgeted millions in the “Big Beautiful Bill’ to pay for more private detention centers. In order to justify that expense, ICE needs to fill those centers. They are supposed to be arresting criminals, but many of those being detained are non-criminals, people who have permits to be here, people applying for citizenship, etc. To detain these people, This administration is using money from the “Big Beautiful Bill” to pay $50,000 signing bonuses to prospective ICE agents. Our tax money is being used for this, while funding for the nation’s health system is being cut.
In too many instances, people are being detained without due process. Even citizens have been detained based on their appearance or language without due process. Detention centers or prisons without due process are concentration camps.
Sick of hearing the Far Left Liberal exaggerations blaming Trump when it was Joe Biden and his administration who for four years left our borders wide open and let millions of undocumented immigrants enter our country illegally. Enough already it’s time to stop the nonsense.
Not everyone thinks the way you do. Others have a right to their opinion. In this country, they also have a duty to express their opinion when they believe wrongs are being committed by their government in their name. They are not criminals or traitors for doing so. They are the loyal opposition. I thank those who are showing detainees that they care about what is being done to them, and I thank those who are bearing witness to and reporting on what is happening in our country today. We should all have their heart and their courage, and we should hope people like them will one day stand up for us if we are mistreated by our government.
And let’s be crystal clear, not everyone feels the way you do either. When you rant and rave and spew the same old far left liberal nonsense over and over again, you sound like a broken record, and lose all credibility. The facts are clear and are written in history Americans had enough of the far left liberal nonsense that was running this country into the ground and were kicked to the curb. To date nothing has changed and the far left liberals continue to be a cancer to our country.
I agree with you 100% Jeff.
Uncle Sam is not going to be uncle sucker for 4 more years
Do the majority of New Bedford citizens want ICE/National Guard in our streets?
If this office was started when Trump was first in office, if things had been so threatening then and in humane then, there would be 10 years less of illegals. No one deserves to be treated in humanly. However, come to the US legally and obey the law. So who’s fault is it for the last 10 years? The number years don’t match if this office originated in trumps first year. I do believe in scared straight as for juvenile offenders, have a scared to enter, but with humane actions. If they are here illegally and deleted, ban them for 10 yrs that will make them think twice.