It’s been happening almost always the same way: someone is out in public in Massachusetts when strangers in ski masks suddenly surround and whisk them away into a waiting dark SUV.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents aren’t always immediately recognizable as authorities because of their face masks, at-times unmarked vests and clothes — unlike the uniformed law enforcement officers with which the public is familiar.
At a press conference in Boston on Monday, ICE officials did not answer questions as to why many of its agents have been witnessed working without any immediate identifiers, such as badges or monikers on jackets.
But the facial disguises, according to Todd Lyons, acting ICE director, are for the agents’ safety.
“… people are out there taking photos of [ICE agents’] faces and posting them online with death threats to their family and themselves,” Lyons said at the press conference at the John Joseph Moakley courthouse, where officials announced nearly 1,500 people were detained by ICE across Massachusetts in May alone.
Lyons said two weeks ago, ICE agents were directly targeted during an operation in Los Angeles by bystanders “doxing” the agents’ children and family through social media accounts.
“So, I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line and family on the line, because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” Lyons said.
In Massachusetts, police officers are required by law to identify themselves and carry an ID card with their photo and information.
Similar rules apply to federal ICE operations, but in recent Massachusetts detainments, what qualifies as proper identification has been inconsistent and unclear, as public outrage reaches a fever pitch in the state over the agency’s tactics and arrests.
On March 27, Martell Lebron-Wilson was detained by ICE agents in what bystanders thought was a kidnapping outside of the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse in Boston.
Lebron-Wilson, a 49-year-old citizen of the Dominican Republic who entered the country without authorization, was on a lunch break during his trial on allegations of falsifying RMV records when agents swiftly took him into an SUV.
“Was that a kidnapping? You’re not going to tell us where he’s going?” a man seen on video asked the federal agents.
The ICE agents walked away with no answer.
Two days prior, Rümeysa Öztürk, a 30-year-old Turkish woman enrolled in a Tufts University doctoral program, was taken by masked agents from the streets of Somerville.
Video from the scene showed Öztürk yelling as bystanders asked the agents what was happening, and if it was a kidnapping.
And in a wild scene last month on Eureka Street in Worcester, several ICE agents — some masked — detained Rosane Ferreira-De Oliveira, a Brazilian mother of three.
They were met by nearly three dozen protesters who demanded to see a warrant and asked, “What are you doing here?”
The only response an ICE agent gave was, “We do not need a judicial warrant for this arrest.”
ICE agents typically do not need a judicial warrant for arrests, though many are carried out with an administrative warrant, according to a “Know Your Rights” guide from Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.
On Monday, Lyons said current ICE operations in Massachusetts are being carried out with assistance from at least the following 10 agencies:
- U.S. Attorney’s Office
- Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)
- Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
- U.S. Coast Guard
- Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)
- Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
- Diplomatic Security Service (DSS)
- Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
- U.S/ Marshals Service
- Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
Over the month of May, 1,461 people were detained by ICE across Massachusetts, the officials said Monday. About half of those people had either been convicted of a crime or had pending criminal charges.
Those targeted in the operation included “drug traffickers, sex offenders, murderers and foreign fugitives trying to evade justice in their home countries,” Lyons said.
While further details were not offered on the other 671 people detained, “every person we arrested was breaking our immigration laws,” acting ICE Boston Office Field Director Patricia Hyde said.
Reporters pressed for a comprehensive list of those detained, but the officials declined to definitively provide one.
Of the total number of people detained, 277 were ordered removed from the U.S. by an immigration judge, Hyde said.
The officials also gave more detail on the arrest of 18-year-old Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, who was detained by ICE on Saturday.
The Milford High School student was on his way to volleyball practices when he was pulled over by ICE in his father’s car — who was actually the intended target of ICE’s operations in Milford, Lyons said.
Reporters challenged Lyons on the decision to arrest a high school student and asked what danger the teenager — who was about to play in the graduation ceremony band the next day — was to his community.
“I didn’t say he was dangerous,” Lyons replied.
“I said he’s in this country illegally, and we’re not going to walk away from anybody,” he said.
