Major ICE operation in New Bedford, at least eight arrested

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

NEW BEDFORD — At least eight people were arrested Monday as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents launched a major operation centered on the Whaling City.

A Light reporter witnessed an arrest near the waterfront Monday morning, and another Light reporter saw what appeared to be ICE agents in several vehicles using the Dartmouth Mall parking lot as a staging area.

The estimate came from Adrian Ventura, executive director of the Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, an organization which hosted a meeting to inform the families of those arrested of resources available to them.

At least four of those arrested Monday worked in fish houses, according to Ventura and other activists.

The Light has identified three of the arrested people as New Bedford residents Miguel Ixcuna-Ixcuna, 30; Israel Sam Cajuil, 38; and Arnaldo Lux. A fourth man identified by The Light, Oscar Abel Gutierrez, 37, resides in Fall River.

According to records at New Bedford District Court, Ixcuna-Ixcuna faced misdemeanor charges for operating a motor vehicle without a license in 2018 and 2024; both were dismissed. The Light has yet to check the records for Sam Cajuil, Lux, or Gutierrez.

Arrest near waterfront

A Light reporter was at the scene at 10 a.m. Monday as agents arrested a man in an orange hoodie on MacArthur Drive near several fish houses. In a video that the Light reporter recorded, masked agents placed the handcuffed man in a black SUV. The agents were dressed in camouflage and bullet-proof vests emblazoned with “POLICE” and “ERO,” the acronym for Enforcement and Removal Operations, a division of ICE.

In the video, activists from LUCE New Bedford, a network of volunteers that monitors ICE activity, can be seen recording the interaction, shouting at the detainee in Spanish to “say nothing,” and blowing whistles.

A male agent can be heard telling one of the activists, “You’re making things worse.”

“No!” an activist shouted back. “You’re making it worse! Why are you here?”

A Light reporter at the Dartmouth Mall observed a large black transit van and several people dressed like the agents on the video. They engaged in a flurry of activity around a half-dozen vehicles before leaving in a caravan around 11:30 a.m. Monday.

The vehicles were seen going toward New Bedford on Route 6 as they left the mall. The Light left the general manager of the Dartmouth Mall did not return a phone call requesting comment.

Over the following hour, LUCE New Bedford posted an image of agents apparently arresting someone on Winsor Street and of vehicles parked in an Ashley Boulevard parking lot.

New Bedford School Superintendent Andrew O’Leary told The Light that earlier in the day there were reports of agents near the Alfred J. Gomes Elementary School. He said the school followed protocols for neighborhood disturbances and there was “no further impact to school operations.”

Janet Barbosa, director of special projects and programs for the City of New Bedford, said local authorities “were not made aware” of any operation. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Families and friends impacted

Ixcuna-Ixcuna’s wife, who asked to be identified only by her middle name of Lucas, said she had just finished a check-in at the ICE Field Office in Burlington that morning when she returned to get documents at New Bedford City Hall with her husband.

She said they drove from downtown up Purchase Street, and a white vehicle came out and stopped their car in front of the Dunkin’ Donuts at 1746 Purchase St.

“They asked me for my documents,” Lucas, who said she has asylum and a green card, told The Light in Spanish. “They let me go. But he had nothing and they took him.”

She said the couple’s 3-year-old was in the car with them and slept through the commotion. She woke up afterwards and immediately began to ask for her father in K’iche’, Lucas recalled as tears overcame her.

“I need him,” she said. “The rent is $1,500. Utilities cost $1,600. I can’t cover that on my own.”

Marcos, an immigrant and former journalist from Ecuador who asked to be identified by his middle name due to his undocumented status, gave The Light an account of Gutierrez’s arrest. Marcos said he was at home in Fall River, waiting for a ride to his contracting job, when his boss called at 6 a.m., 30 minutes after his normal pickup time, saying that it would not happen. The colleague charged with pickup, Gutierrez, was arrested by ICE as he left the owner’s Fall River property in the company transit van, Marcos said his boss told him.

“It doesn’t appear they were looking for him,” Marcos said of Gutierrez, adding that he was unaware of a criminal record. “He came here seeking asylum, went to all his hearings, and was approved.”

Marcos added that having an ICE detention hit so close to home made him more anxious about his own future.

“We all are afraid,” he said. “Today, it was our colleague. Tomorrow, it could be any one of us.”

Lawyers ready to file petitions

Heather Arroyo, senior immigration attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, told The Light that 20 lawyers are on standby to file habeas corpus petitions through the institute’s Habeas Project on behalf of those arrested.

“This is definitely a major action and a change in strategy,” she said. “We had been seeing them move a little quieter [in recent months].”

Arroyo said ICE had been operating in courthouses, check-in facilities, prisons, and other locations, where they could operate without the hypervisibility seen during the tenure of former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Arroyo said ICE’s visibility and presence across New Bedford seemed calculated to terrorize.

“This feels different because it is specifically targeting one community and that is causing a lot of fear,” she said. “We want people to understand that we are here to respond to that.”

Ondine Sniffin, a prominent immigration attorney based in New Bedford, said she had not received calls related to her clients but she suspected that would change.

“As of right now, it’s a handful of cases,” she said, adding that it was disproportionately small to the attention the operation received online. “I think in the coming hours and days we will be inundated with reports.”

She added that given the large number of resources ICE seemed to bring to bear in the area, she suspects this will not be the end of operations.

“I think it might carry on several days, so everyone is on high alert,” she said. “We’re ready for it.”

Businesses see decline

Monday morning, activists sent multiple warnings on social media in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole, advising immigrants to stay home due to ICE activity.

Restaurants on Acushnet Avenue in the city’s North End told The Light they were already experiencing a decline in business Monday.

Marilyn Pineda, the owner of Casa Lempira, a Honduran restaurant, said that they locked the front door of the restaurant in an effort to keep people safe.

“A lot of our customers and employees were scared,” she said. “We’re letting [ICE] know that they’re not welcome here.”

She said that she estimated sales Monday dropped 50% from normal due to the fear in the community.

“Nobody’s going out,” she said. “We didn’t realize how crazy this was.”

Next door, Martín Ordoñez, the owner of Restaurante y Tortilleria Guatemalteco, said he also saw a 50% drop in sales Monday since news of the operation went out.

“It’s sad, in all honesty,” he said in Spanish. “Now I’m afraid and sad in all senses of the word.”

Kevin G. Andrade can be contacted at kandrade@newbedfordlight.org

Nathan Collins can be contacted at ncollins@newbedfordlight.org