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FRAMINGHAM — A woman who was detained 19 years ago in the Bianco raid in New Bedford is under pressure from immigration authorities again.
Lessy Ramos, whose presence in the U.S. has been in limbo for at least 20 years, says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has given her one month to make a plan to leave the country.
Ramos, 41, a single mother and undocumented immigrant from Honduras, attended her monthly check-in Monday at the Intensive Supervision Advisory Program office in Framingham. She said agents told her she had one month to return with a plan to depart for Honduras and a custody plan for her two minor children — one of whom is being treated for a bloodborne illness at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“It’s a situation that’s been very sad and difficult for me,” Ramos told The Light in Spanish. “I feel that [ICE] are bodies with no soul because they can’t feel an ounce of emotion.”
Ramos’ case began in 2007, shortly after the Michael Bianco Inc. raid, when she was among the 361 immigrant workers detained at a textile mill in New Bedford’s South End. It was the largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history at the time.
Ramos, who lives in New Bedford, was among the many who applied for asylum shortly after but, unlike most of the 361 who applied, was denied. She lost an appeal on that case and at least two more motions in 2011 and 2021, resulting in a pending removal order.
“[I’m a] struggling mother who works and doesn’t depend on the government,” Ramos said. “I don’t consider myself a public charge because I’ve always worked.
“I have to do my utmost for my children,” she continued. “[This] doesn’t seem like justice to me.”
Ramos had been able to stay in the country because her lack of a criminal record did not make her a priority for removal under previous administrations. (A search of Massachusetts court records by The Light found only one case, a dismissed and disposed misdemeanor charge of driving without a license in New Bedford in 2015.)
An executive order issued in the first weeks of the second Trump administration expanded detention priorities to include those with removal orders and, essentially, any undocumented person in the U.S., such as Ramos.
Lawyers with the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts filed a habeas petition on Ramos’ behalf earlier Monday in U.S. District Court Massachusetts. Judge Brian E. Murphy issued an order to not remove Ramos from the state.
The Intensive Supervision Advisory Program (ISAP) is operated for the federal government by a third party vendor, Boulder-based BI, Inc. (BI is a subsidiary of GEO Group, the largest private for-profit prison contractor in the nation.) The program monitors the location of an immigrant in the ICE system through GPS anklets and monthly check-ins.
Sudden change
Ramos and her attorney, Michael Bozza, said she was mostly left alone until shortly after Trump returned to office, when ICE placed her in ISAP and began to require monthly check-ins for her. In October, authorities put the anklet on Ramos.
“I think it was just an upping of the pressure on Lessy,” Bozza said, adding that ISAP check-ins are easy places to detain immigrants and thus please leadership in Washington, D.C. “That’s someone who’s walking in and you know where they live.”
Bozza added that he filed for a stay of removal on Friday, May 1, days before a Monday, May 4, check-in. On that day, he said agents told him that his request for a stay had been denied.
“We appeared here on Monday, and I was told in person here that it had been denied that past Saturday,” he said. “That’s pretty quick. That doesn’t indicate to me that there was that much review going on. This is just an indication of how sloppy and haphazard this is.”
He said ICE agents repeatedly said they indicated they were feeling pressure from national leadership on this particular case.
“The demeanor of the guys is: We don’t want to do this; she seems like a good person,” Bozza said. “Like they have insight into cases and they’re pressuring the field offices to put the screws on people.”
Tension
As Ramos and Bozza prepared to enter the ISAP office in Framingham on June 1, Dayani Mendez Ramos, 18, anxiously awaited the results of her mother’s appointment at home in New Bedford.
“I have to get ready for prom right now and I’m really worried,” Mendez Ramos told The Light in a phone interview. “They’re working on trying to get her and my siblings out of the country.”
She said that the move in October to place Ramos on ISAP and initiate monthly check-ins took her by surprise.
“All of the sudden they added pressure out of nowhere,” Mendez Ramos said.
Mendez Ramos said she accompanied her mother during previous appointments and said they appeared to be pressuring her mother to leave then as well. She said she and her siblings were uncertain as to whether she would come home on check-in days. It’s a serious concern for her as she prepares to leave for the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the fall.
“There’s so much uncertainty that I can only hope that she’ll be there,” she said through tears. “The only illegal thing she ever did was cross the border, but she’s never done anything bad. … It’s just so unfair.”
Contact Kevin G. Andrade at kandrade@newbedfordlight.org
