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NEW BEDFORD — In what may be the largest single immigration detention in the city since January, federal agents detained multiple men near a popular South End restaurant on Thursday.

Between five and eight Mexican men on their way to work in the building trades were detained in an operation at the corner of South Second Street and Cove Street in the South End, according to Corinn Williams, director of the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts.

“It sounds like they don’t have a whole lot of time in New Bedford,” she said, referring to the detained men. “It seems like they don’t have a whole lot of family in the area.

“The first few hours after these pickups, it’s very hard to get information,” she added.

Alicia López González, co-director of Mujeres Victoriosas, posted a video to the organization’s Facebook page around 11 a.m. announcing the early morning raid.

“Immigration was here some time around 5:30 a.m.,” González said in Spanish from the scene. “They took in multiple people. We don’t know why.”

Another video on Facebook from the same location, shot by a person driving, shows a black SUV with flashing lights blocking a white work van surrounded by agents. The video appears in the comments of a previous post about the incident on Mujeres Victoriosas’s Facebook page.

A waitress at a nearby restaurant told The Light she guessed the men detained were either sheet rockers or painters.

Detentions picking up again

The operation followed a week when detentions appeared to be on the increase. Williams, the CEDC director, said a New Bedford woman from Guatemala reported that her brother was picked up on his way to work Thursday, and a New Bedford man working at sea was detained earlier in the week.

“[ICE] hasn’t moved on,” she said.

Helena DaSilva Hughes, president of the Immigrants’ Assistance Center, said a Brazilian man was arrested Sunday while doing a mandatory check-in under a supervision program.

“They’re picking up people and no one knows it’s happening,” she said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not comment on the operation directly.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducts immigration enforcement activities throughout New England,” James Covington, communications director for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston Field Office, said in an email. “As part of its routine operations, ICE arrests aliens who commit crimes and other individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws. 

“All aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removed from the United States, regardless of nationality,” he continued. “Due to our operational tempo and the increased interest in our agency and operations, we are not able to research and respond to rumors or specifics of routine daily operations for ICE.”

With this week’s operations, data and incidents tracked by The Light show that at least 39 immigrants have been detained in New Bedford and nearby areas since January.

Contact Kevin G. Andrade at kandrade@newbedfordlight.org

9 replies on “Mexican workers arrested in immigration raid in South End”

  1. 5 out of town Mexicans while the Fish houses full of Guatemalans are ignored. Follow the money.

  2. Grabbing people off the street without due process isn’t the American I know. They made a bad mistake coming here illegally, but many are hard working people with young children. Why isn’t it in us to help them rather than kick them out. Why so much hate? History has shown how a good people can turn on each other when led by hateful leadership.

    2. When has a president ever let in 10s of millions of unskilled and unvetted illegals? This is an unprecedented response to an unprecedented decision by Biden.

  3. We are all gooing to be in for a shock when there’s no food on the shelves or in the refrigerated case and freezers, when crops are rotting in the fields, when bothing is getting built or finished, painted, landscaped or other. Undocumented WORKERS are the backbone of our Society. Deporting PEOPLE isn’t SOLVING the PROBLEM of a lack of documentation.

    1. America did just fine for 100 years without illegal immigrants, and we’ll be just fine when their gone, the only difference is the business owners will have to pay prevailing wages as opposed to the low wages illegal immigrants have worked for, and that’s just as it should be.

    2. “Lack of Documentation” as if citizenship of a nation is established by mere work-permission documents.
      How do you argue with such pablum ? … you can not and we need a national divorce.
      A Nation can not survive with such seditious cohort of its population as these vile leftists seeking complete anarchy

  4. They want to come to the country and live here legally then they need to do it the right way the legal way just like the rest of us have done, and these people will not picked up by random chance they wanted in their own country get your head out of the clouds

  5. This is a total shame. This is not the American way those that think this is right have no heart and no soul.

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