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NEW BEDFORD – Federal immigration agents arrested a Guatemalan man on Thursday morning while he was checking on a property he owns in the South End, according to family members.

Jose Bonilla, 58, who lives in Everett, was stopped by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the intersection of Roosevelt Street and Cove Road. He had traveled to check on one of his three properties in New Bedford, a building he owns on Cleveland Street. 

Carolina Zavora, a relative who was accompanying Bonilla in the car, said the agents had been waiting at the property and followed them when they left. She saw at least two SUVs, additional vehicles, and five agents. According to Zavora, the agents showed Bonilla a photo of one of his former tenants when they pulled them over.

“He told them it wasn’t him in the photo,” she said in Spanish. “Then they asked for his license.”

Intersection of Roosevelt Street and Cove Road, where Jose Bonilla was arrested by ICE. Credit: Eleonora Bianchi / The New Bedford Light

Zavora said Bonilla explained to the agents that he came to New Bedford only to check on his property. He also told them he had an open petition for a visa through his wife, Norma Umana, a green card holder. After looking at his license, Zavora said, the agents told him the petition had been rejected.

“How is that possible?” said Kimberly Samanta Portillo Umana, Bonilla’s daughter, who drove from Everett to pick up her father’s car. “When we checked, it was still processing.”

Portillo Umana said that after the arrest, she called their lawyer, who confirmed via the USCIS website that the petition is still processing.

According to Massachusetts court records, Bonilla had a misdemeanor charge for unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in Chelsea District Court, which was dismissed in 2007.

Bonilla’s wife, who is from Guatemala, said she is a volunteer with Latinos Unidos en Massachusetts (LUMA), an immigrant advocacy group. She left for El Salvador on Wednesday and had planned to stay for a few weeks, but is now trying to return early.

“I’m checking flights now to come back and be with my family,” she said. “This is stupid. People are working, but they don’t have freedom anymore.”

As she spoke with The Light, Umana received an incoming call. “My son is calling me,” she said. “I don’t even know how to tell him.”

Lucy Pineda, founder and director of LUMA, said the call she received from Umana on Thursday about Bonilla’s arrest was one of five she got that morning.

“It’s sad because this is another case, and it’s close to us, and we have many cases every day, every hour,” she said.

Since the start of the current administration, Pineda said, LUMA has been keeping track of arrests across the state based on calls they receive from family members.

“We’ve been helping families because they don’t know how the process works,” she said. “So we help them to find where they’ve been detained.”

As of Thursday afternoon, the ICE detainee locator did not list Bonilla’s location. ICE did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

The Light has confirmed that ICE has arrested more than 50 people in the Greater New Bedford area since February.

Bonilla’s arrest in New Bedford comes more than a month after the most recent reported local immigration arrest. On July 26, Jhovani Duvan Leiva Cornejo was arrested in the Port of New Bedford after returning from a fishing trip. On July 23, ICE, alongside the U.S. Coast Guard, detained Luis Guillermo Castro Alvarez. Two days before, ICE detained an undocumented Salvadoran man, Juan Carlos Abarca-Jovel.

In other ICE actions today, agents questioned another man in New Bedford’s North End about his residency status about four hours before they arrested Bonilla.

Dashcam video provided to The Light by the man, who asked not to be identified due to concerns around his asylum process, shows a masked agent wearing military garb exiting a large vehicle with New Jersey plates at 6:10 a.m. The agent approached the man, who is from Guatemala, and asked: “¿Tienes documentos?” [Do you have documents?] Shortly afterward, another masked agent who had parked farther down the street is seen walking toward the scene.

The man told The Light that agents let him go shortly after they noticed that he wore a GPS monitor around his ankle.

“I have no problem with ICE,” he said in Spanish. “I have my papers in order.”

Kevin Andrade contributed to this report.

Email Eleonora Bianchi at ebianchi@newbedfordlight.org.

20 replies on “ICE detains New Bedford landlord in city’s South End”

  1. Ok, he’s in the process of being legal . He owns properties in New Bedford and has come to the city to check on them. What the fudge! Isn’t that what we need? Why didn’t he get picked up in Everett? Go after the illegals, that are criminals. It ‘s not Biden’s administration that allowed them to enter when they’ve been here over 5 yrs!

    1. Illegal is illegal. Where in the article did he say he’s been here over five years? How did he buy buildings without a social security number? If he had one who does it really belong too?

      1. There are TI (tax identifier number) numbers given in those who are here legally waiting to become citizens. Why doesn’t it say how long he’s been here. All the illegals being picked up in New Bedford have been here for years, with the exception of the 2 picked up last week in the south end. You’re assuming he’s been in the Biden years. “Do not pass go, do not collect 200.00.” It states he’s waiting to be a citizen so he could have come in the Biden administration, legally.

  2. We should all download the ICEBlock app and report any ICE activity. We must protect our peaceful, law-abiding neighbors. Cowards in ICE have proven they are not going after criminals time after time.

  3. So now they just mask themselves like the terrorists and go after tax payers making contributions in multiple cities. Meanwhile the criminals are still running around free

  4. It’s in the best interest of all illegals to start addressing this situation, get their paperwork started, and if they have started it, make sure their are no lingering issues.

    1. Get their paperwork started? Like this guy did? What difference does it make if they get their paperwork started if they get picked up mid process?

  5. The article is strange by how it attempts to exalt an illegal immigrant slumlord as some sort of hapless victim or martyr. The United States has too many people and not enough resources. Illegal immigrants in Massachusetts get free food, housing, transportation, education, even phones. Migrant hotels aside, many have been put up in homes thanks heavily subsidized by the state, which is broke and has to find the money by imposing more taxes and fees, driving up rents. All most need to qualify is a kid in the household. US citizen kids are a golden ticket. Massachusetts government pampers these people to the point of fetishization with the handouts. Our real estate is incredibly overvalued and the development lobby’s thirst for assets is never quenched. There’s no way an illegal immigrant should be able to own property in a reasonable society. I know it’s currently legal, but residential, agricultural, industrial and the bulk of commercial properties in the US should belong to US citizens only.

    We’re living in a different era. The old Ellis Island days are gone. The country has been built. We don’t need any more people. Rather than going after every illegal immigrant, it would be far better to make the country an unappealing place for an illegal immigrant to exist in. Mexico could improve their poverty and crime situation dramatically if they wanted to. The US is willing to go to war on the cartels. Mexico refuses, preferring the steady stream of American dollars it receives from illegals sending money home. Illegal immigration is big business for the third world. While many of these countries have horrific slums and poverty, they almost always have a good chunk of natural resources and diversified economies. Corruption and incompetence from up top keep many in poverty. All the US would have to do is withdraw aid and/or institute penalties until they clean their act up. Many migrants aren’t fleeing poverty or violence at all. It’s just an easier way of life up here. Who wants to work like a dog in some Central American factory and live in a small, simple room when you can live all-expenses paid and work a job for pocket money and savings after the coyote is paid off? Who wouldn’t do it? They don’t care if they’re helping to drive down wages, overcrowding everything, contributing to the destruction of the natural environment, their kids are joining gangs, creating no-go zones, taking resources from already strained Americans, creating high demand for everything , driving up costs, increasing taxes they don’t have to worry about, and creating havoc out on our roads.

    3. The United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet, how could you say we don’t have enough resources?

  6. The US should be ashamed of themselves the way this country has gone to the dogs. I’m 65 yrs old lost my car , my apt just because the landlord wanted to go up 650 on the rent. I applied for unemployment and it took 16 weeks before I got a ck. I lost my car because I had no money. Now I am homeless and there is no help in site. I was told there is up to a 10 yr waiting list. I can’t afford anything else. This country is awful right now. I have worked my whole life to get 1078 dollars from social security and now they are taking out for Medicare. Now I’m down to $898 for the month. There isn’t enough housing because of all the immigrants here and imagine they own property and they aren’t even here legally. What a country !

    1. Agree, except for your last statement. He apparently is here legally waiting for citizenship. Next time wiser choices need to be made at election time.

  8. When Cove STREET is reported as Cove ROAD, several times (in both the article and in labeled photos), it makes me doubt the veracity of the entire article.

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