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NEW BEDFORD — A Honduran mother of three who has lived in the city since 2021 was arrested recently by federal immigration authorities during a scheduled immigration check-in in Framingham.
The arrest appears to be the first detainment of a female immigrant in New Bedford confirmed by The Light since immigration operations began shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Yury Melissa Aguiriano-Romero, 35, was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on June 3, a day after she and her husband received a message instructing them to report to an ICE office in Framingham for a check-in under the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, or ISAP. The program monitors immigrants awaiting court proceedings or deportation using electronic surveillance.
Her husband, Victor Emilio Murillo-Avila, 35, said that when they arrived at the office, they waited for about two hours before his wife was taken into a separate room. “That was the last time I saw her,” he said.
Murillo-Avila was not detained, but said he was ordered to purchase one-way tickets to Honduras for himself and their children by July 2.
Aguiriano-Romero is now being held at ICE’s Burlington field office, a short-term processing site that is not designed for long-term detention. According to Murillo-Avila, she has been held under unsanitary and harsh conditions.
“My wife has now spent seven days in Burlington,” said Murillo-Avila on Monday. “Four days ago, she got her period and she hasn’t been able to take a shower. They just gave her a bottle of water, which she’s been using to wash herself.”
“She hasn’t had a decent meal yet,” he added. “Just crackers and water.”
He said that she has been sleeping on the floor with only a Mylar blanket and that the floor is “dirty with urine.”
Conditions at the Burlington site have come under increased scrutiny after Marcelo Gomes da Silva, an 18-year old Milford High School senior detained by ICE on his way to volleyball practice, spoke publicly about the conditions of his detention.
“I don’t want to cry, but I want to say, that place is not good,” da Silva said of the facility, according to The Boston Globe. “Ever since I got here, they had me in handcuffs.”
In response to The Light’s request for comment regarding the conditions at the detention center, an ICE spokesman defended the facility.
“There are occasions where detainees might need to stay at the Burlington office for a short period that might exceed the anticipated administrative processing time,” the spokesman said, adding that stays at the Burlington field office are a rarity but the facility is equipped.
“Detainees pending processing are given ample food, regular access to phones, showers and legal representation as well as medical care when needed,” he said.
Shortly after da Silva’s release, Massachusetts Congressmen Jake Auchincloss and Seth Moulton toured the facility and said it is inadequate for long-term detentions. They said there were no windows in the cells and no showers for detainees.
“The conditions that we saw are conditions that would be appropriate for the processing over the course of 12 to 24 hours, not appropriate for someone to be spending a week in,” Auchincloss said.
Aguiriano-Romero’s Case
Money and work had never been a problem for Murillo-Avila and his wife back in Honduras. A university graduate with a degree in marketing, Murillo-Avila worked as a supervisor at Pepsi, while his wife held a government position in the Secretariat of Agriculture and Livestock under former president Juan Orlando Hernández. But in their home region — the Bajo Aguán — land disputes involving criminal gangs had been escalating.
In 2023, the U.S. Department of State reported that criminal organizations — both local and transnational — have been responsible for a surge in violent crimes in the country: homicides, torture, human trafficking. Human rights defenders and journalists were frequent targets. Few of these crimes led to prosecution, and impunity had become the norm.
Murillo-Avila said he and Aguiriano-Romero left their middle-class life in Honduras in December 2021, shortly after the birth of their second child, to seek asylum in the United States. For years, he said, the family had quietly paid extortion fees to local gangs following the 2015 killing of Aguiriano-Romero’s brother-in-law, who had ties to drug trafficking groups. But the arrival of their second child, he said, forced a decision.
“We couldn’t do it anymore,” he said, adding that his daughter was not even a year old at the time. “I held her in my arms when we crossed the border.”
Because he reported the threats to authorities before leaving the country, Murillo-Avila said he applied for asylum in the United States, claiming that returning to Honduras would be dangerous.
An immigration judge denied that claim in February 2023 and ordered their removal, citing insufficient evidence of danger, according to Murillo-Avila.
But the couple did not leave.
“It’s difficult for us to return,” said Murillo-Avila. “The gangs might still be there.”
A records search by The Light at the New Bedford District Court found that neither Murillo-Avila nor Aguiriano-Romero has a criminal record in Massachusetts.
Following the denial of their asylum claim, the couple was placed in the ISAP program, which uses alternative detention methods. Initially, they were monitored through the SmartLink app on a government-issued phone; later, they were fitted with ankle monitors.
“Two years wearing an ankle monitor, always doing things right,” Murillo-Avila said. “If ICE called, I would go. But in the end, doing things right turned out badly.”
Looking for a resolution
Murillo-Avila said he has not yet purchased the tickets for himself or their three children, who are 13, 5 and 3. The oldest entered the country through the unaccompanied minor program and the youngest was born in the U.S. But the 5-year-old is undocumented like her parents.
Murillo-Avila said he intends to continue the family’s fight to stay, adding that he just found a new lawyer to fight the couple’s case.
Multiple attempts to reach the newly appointed lawyer through the family were not successful.
Before the lawyer took the case on June 10, a friend of the family without legal training filed an emergency petition in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts on June 5 arguing that Aguiriano-Romero was wrongly arrested. Judge Brian E. Murphy issued an order in response that officials notify the court 48 hours before moving her out of the judicial district and a temporary stay on removal from the U.S.
According to court documents, ICE notified the court on June 10 of its intent to transfer Aguiriano-Romero out of Burlington on June 13. Murphy responded by prohibiting a transfer until 5:30 p.m. on that date. A hearing has been scheduled that same day for 11:30 a.m. at U.S. District Court in Boston.
Earlier this week, Murillo-Avila visited the Immigrants’ Assistance Center in New Bedford to complete a Caregiver Authorization Affidavit, a document that authorizes his sister-in-law, Lesly Aguiriano-Romero — a naturalized U.S. citizen — to care for the couple’s three daughters if both parents are deported.
Murillo-Avila said he hopes the legal fight will bring his wife home and reunite her with their daughters. “A child needs their mother.”
“We are not criminals,” Murillo-Avila said. “We understand that we are in a country that is not ours, and that we are here illegally, but we came asking for a chance to stay legally, because we entered and requested asylum.
“We were being persecuted in our country and this country protects people,” he said. “I believe in this country human rights are more respected than in our country. We came with the hope of being accepted.”
Given recent events though, he said he is no longer so sure. He said that when he saw agents smash a car window to detain Juan Francisco Méndez in New Bedford in April, the fear really struck home.
“That was terrible to see,” he said. “That really frightened us and we’ve been scared to even go out.”
He insisted, though, that he has faith in American society.
“I see a lot of people out there protecting the Latino community,” he said. “There still are good people doing good work out there.”
Kevin G. Andrade can be reached at kandrade@newbedfordlight.org
Eleonora Bianchi can be reached at ebianchi@newbedfordlight.org
Another cherry picked story to tug out our heartstrings. The fact is this family illegally immigrated to the US, sought asylum, and couldn’t prove to a non biased immigration judge that the their fears at home were credible. Still, what the article fails to mention is that in 2023, the US provided over $425 million to Honduras via USAID for humanitarian reasons. But when the US cuts back on this aid, the libs scream bloody murder? So, what would be a more interesting story, is for the Light to send Mr Andrade and ms Bianchi to Honduras to try to find out why US has to fund the illegal migration of people from Honduras and the fund illegal immigration these people while they are in the US?
Why are you so angry? Did these people take something from you, hurt you in some way or is it just too much Fox News?