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NEW BEDFORD — About 30 people showed up at a rally against immigration arrests in front of City Hall Thursday, but the size wasn’t the point for the organizers.
It was to be seen.
“We’re here just to remind people that even if they can’t speak out, we’re here for them,” said Shelley Quinton, a Fairhaven resident and an organizer with Indivisible Southeast Mass, a progressive group.
Dubbed “Stop the Abductions,” the rally focused on immigrants arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. It also protested cuts to Medicaid and other federal programs in the U.S. House’s budget bill, officially titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” now pending in the U.S. Senate.
The protest was the second such small-scale action by the group, with the first, on April 30, attracting about 60 people, according to Quinton.
Quinton said the raids in New Bedford prompted her to start a new phase in her life, which until recently was free of political activism.
“With these raids, there’s no due process and, often, nobody knows where [the detainees] are,” she said. “This is a blatant violation of the Constitution.”
She added that the arrest of Juan Francisco Méndez in particular motivated her.
“They were just people, sitting in their car, calmly, doing what they’re supposed to do,” she said, referring to Méndez’s use of a “know your rights” card and insistence on calling his lawyer to the scene before speaking to the agents. “The terror of it all stuck with me.”
On April 14, Méndez was detained in a viral arrest when federal agents were filmed using an axe to break his car window.
Authorities held Méndez in custody for over a month, and he faced no charges until after an immigration judge declared a failure to prosecute on May 8. After Méndez was issued charging documents for illegal entry, another immigration judge released him on bail on May 15.
The rally also brought in other cases, such as that of Marcelino Gomes DaSilva, an 18-year old undocumented Brazilian man and high school senior detained by agents in Milford on Saturday. Gomes was released from detention Thursday afternoon after an immigration judge granted him bail.
“Many of the New Bedford detainees have received a lot of local coverage,” said Cassandra Bergantim of New Bedford, who held a sign demanding Gomes’ release. “It’s worth bringing his name up.”
She added that as someone living with a disability, she feels she has a dog in the fight, with President Trump’s federal budget set to cut funds to programs that help the disabled.
“All of this is really interconnected,” she said.
Almost 30 detained in New Bedford area
At a press conference in Boston Monday, ICE officials, including Acting Director Todd Lyons, said that the majority of immigrants arrested during a monthlong enhanced operation in Massachusetts had criminal records.
They said 1,461 people were detained over the course of the month, including 790 with “significant criminality” — meaning they faced criminal charges, notwithstanding the outcomes of cases. That leaves 691 with no significant criminal records.
According to reporting by The Light, 28 men in New Bedford — mostly Indigenous people from Guatemala — have been detained in immigration raids since Trump took office on Jan. 20. The majority had no criminal record in Massachusetts, or had charges from years ago dismissed by various mechanisms in state courts. Many now face a federal charge of illegal entry into the U.S., a misdemeanor on the first offense.
At least 10 New Bedford men were detained during the course of Operation Patriot, including Juan Ramón Alegría Rodas, 43, and Mario Estuardo Toj Cos, 20, both of Guatemala. Only one of those identified, Rodas, had any criminal record; a domestic violence complaint filed in 2007 by his wife at Framingham District Court. A judge dismissed the case after both failed to appear at a hearing.
The operation was the second such “enhanced operation” carried out in the state, after an operation in March that included two high-profile raids in New Bedford, on Viall Street and Sawyer Street.
ICE officials insisted Monday that federal agents have respected the civil and due process rights of those detained.
“The whole due process thing,” a frustrated Lyons said in response to a question from the press Monday. “ICE doesn’t just scoop people up off the street and remove them.”
But local activists say several incidents in New Bedford contradict such statements.
Among the most prominent occurred on March 21, when agents dressed in military fatigues battered down a door to a South End home and detained Miguel Ordoñez Socop, 35, and José António Garcia Garcia, 39. Family members present say the agents did not show judicial warrants for their arrest. Legally, ICE is required to have a judicial warrant signed by a judge to enter private property to arrest a person.
That action prompted the first demonstration against the raids in the city on March 29, which about 200 people attended.
The Light confirmed last week that at least two of the local men detained, Rodas and Socop, have been deported to Guatemala. At least two local men, André DeLeón Ventura and Mario Lopez Sajvin, have pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court Massachusetts to felony charges of illegal re-entry after a deportation. They will face the possibility of deportation after sentencing.
Email Kevin G. Andrade at kandrade@newbedfordlight.org
I have a few comments on this story, but I now realize this news forum “New Bedford Light” is worse than China , Russia, and North Korea combined as far as censorship. If you’re not an extreme left liberal socialist Democrat, do waste your time commenting on any story, it will just be deleted.
Enjoy your censored news, I hope the local businesses stop advertising here, you’re wasting your money and reaching only the lowest paid readers, in fact the name should be changed to “The Far Left Liberal News” since those are only people who agree with the liberal owners of this propaganda that calls themselves “local news”.