WATSONVILLE – A woman was driving her Salvadoran husband to work with their three children in the back seat about 4 a.m. Tuesday on Calabasas Road, a quiet, residential street north of Watsonville city limits, when she was pulled over and her husband was taken by ICE agents.

The woman, a U.S. citizen, said she noticed a dark-colored, unmarked car flashing its lights tailing her and she pulled over, said Doug Keegan, an attorney at Santa Cruz County Immigration Project in Watsonville.

The husband was detained and taken to a federal hold in San Francisco on suspicion of living in the U.S. illegally. About four hours later, the woman and her sister took their case to Keegan.

The husband, who is about 30 years old, may have been deported in 2005 for no “malfeasance” except having crossed the border illegally, Keegan said. The detained man has lived in the U.S. about 12 years, Keegan said. A prior deportation would eliminate “a lot of options” the man might pursue to remain in the U.S. legally, Keegan said.

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The man was arrested during a “routine operation by deportation officers,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman James Schwab said.

Without the man’s name and birthday, ICE would not release information about the case, Schwab said. Keegan declined to release the man’s name while working to find an attorney who would represent the case.

There were questions whether more than one person was arrested by ICE, but Schwab confirmed there was only one ICE case Tuesday in Santa Cruz County.

Keegan said the woman told him the agents said they were stopping the vehicle to detain her husband for reasons she would not know about.

Authorities from four vehicles went to the pre-dawn traffic stop, Keegan said.

“What this indicates, to me, is that they are staking out individuals to discern their habits,” Keegan said.

The traffic stop happened less than a mile from the family’s home, Keegan said.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office had no involvement but was notified at 3:45 a.m. Tuesday that ICE would be working in the unincorporated county, Sgt. Brian Cleveland said.

The Watsonville Law Center, an organization that provides free legal services to low-income clients on the Central Coast, was receiving calls all day from people who thought they had seen ICE in and near Watsonville, Clinic Manager Adriana Melgoza said. If a vehicle does show flashing lights, request identification from the person who initiated the traffic stop, she said.

“And never sign anything,” Melgoza said.

Santa Cruz immigration attorney Michael Mehr said ICE agents have the right to initiate a traffic stop, but they need “reasonable suspicion” that someone in a vehicle is undocumented.

DISRUPTION

News of the man’s arrest triggered reports about the possibility that ICE was near Amesti Elementary School on Amesti Road, only two miles from the traffic stop, Watsonville City Councilman Felipe Hernandez said. He searched but found no signs of ICE agents or vehicles Tuesday afternoon.

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Pajaro Valley Unified School District spokeswoman Alicia Jiménez said the district is trying to gather information to provide services to any children affected by the arrest. The district has policies that make campuses offlimits to federal agents without warrants granting entry, Jiménez said.

Watsonville Mayor Oscar Rios said Watsonville is a sanctuary city and its police department and leadership would not cooperate with immigration raids. The arrest Tuesday happened in unincorporated Santa Cruz County.

“They’re our people, too,” Rios said. “This was a scare tactic. They are like hunters. It’s not like they come here to stop violence.”