Hunger, fear, desperation: What came of an ordinary ICE raid
COVINGTON, Ky. (AP) — It had taken a decade for Brandon Tomas Tomas to establish a life in America: a wife, a steady job and five American-born children. It took 20 seconds for that life to be taken away.
An immigration officer looking for someone else spotted him and asked an innocuous question: “Cómo estás?” How are you? Then he asked whether Tomas had papers. In a flash, the 33-year-old Guatemalan was in handcuffs, in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, headed to jail and probable deportation.
Many miles away from the U.S.-Mexico border, authorities are separating families in raids that target immigrants at home and at work, conducted in the name of public safety. Most of these raids go unnoticed outside of the communities affected, but they are integral to the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on immigration that is leading to more arrests, particularly of migrants with no criminal records.
This is the story of one such operation, and the lingering effects it had not just on families but on the community they had come to call home. (Lea la historia en español aquí .)
Over two days in five towns across northern Kentucky, agents staked out homes before sunup, stopped men heading for jobs, went to warehouses like the one where Tomas had worked for more than a year. By ICE’s accounting, 20 men and two women were picked up.
Families barely getting by lost their only breadwinner. Left-behind wives didn’t know how to hire a lawyer or how they would afford bonds. Volunteers passed out cash so that bills got paid. Children needed meals, clothes and rides to school, and one school consultant says three students came to her, talking about suicide.
Even now, more than six months later, a boy, 4 years old, screams if he can’t find his father, terrified he’s been taken away again.
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The operation occurred a few weeks before Christmas. ICE wouldn’t release the names of those taken into custody; a press release said only that “most” of the people targeted had prior criminal histories. The agency summarized the cases of what it called the worst offenders. One had been convicted of assaulting a police officer and evading officers. Another had a conviction for fraud by impersonation and a record of driving under the influence. A third had multiple DUI convictions.
The Associated Press found others arrested during the operation or soon after who weren’t apparent public safety threats, some of whom ICE encountered while looking for others. According to court records, lawyers and advocates, at least five were charged after the operation with crimes that relate to being in the U.S. illegally, including using fraudulent documents to get work, and eight people were eligible for bond, meaning they are not considered a danger to the community.
Among those apprehended and now out is Edgar Perez Ramirez. One afternoon recently, Perez is standing outside when his 4-year-old son darts down the sidewalk, shrieking because he thinks his father has disappeared again. The boy stops, panting, fighting to calm himself down, until his mother, Carmelinda, comes down the stairs and tries to reassure him: “Tu papá está aquí.” Your father is here.
Several thousand immigrants have settled in northern Kentucky, opening restaurants that serve Guatemalan pollo dorado and attending Spanish-language Mass. Like many of them, Perez and Carmelinda came here from indigenous communities in San Marcos, Guatemala. San Marcos is a transit point on the route to the nearby Mexican border. Human and drug traffickers operate with impunity, and gangs fight for territory.
“There wasn’t a day that you stopped hearing about deaths,” Perez says.
One day, about a decade ago, a knife ended his father’s life. Perez’s two brothers had already made their way to Kentucky and so, with the services of a trafficker, Perez took buses through Mexico and walked across the Sonoran Desert. Carmelinda soon joined him. Two children, both born in Covington, followed. The family found their place here, making a home in two rooms of a row house filled with immigrant families who all share a kitchen and one bathroom.