Karen Yi

@karen_yi

As word that immigration authorities were intensifying their enforcement efforts rippled across New Jersey, federal officials insisted it was business as usual and no raids were taking place here.

The representations Tuesday from the federal officials did little to quell fears in immigrant communities after at least two young men were detained following searches in their homes in Freehold and New Brunswick last week. Both families said immigration officials entered their homes without permission.

“It sounds like they are ramping up enforcement,” said Chia-Chia Wang, an organizer with American Friends Service Committee, an immigrant advocacy group. “We believe that these are regular, ongoing raids.”

Alvin Phillips, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was emphatic that agents were not participating in any raids; he characterized the ICE activity as regular enforcement actions against specific persons, rather than random roundups of undocumented immigrants.

“We’re not doing anything that we were not doing in December,” said Phillips. “We’ve done absolutely nothing differently. We must enforce the law. Our borders are not open to illegal immigration, if you come here illegally we will send you back.”

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Immigrant advocates say recent ICE actions across the state have terrorized immigrant communities including people with legal status.

Fear, panic grip Freehold as rumors of raids spread

“What matters is the perception in the community, and the community is certainly feeling the fear,” said Alexander Shalom, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in New Jersey. “People are staying home, they are not going to work (or) going to school.”

'I was very scared, I was crying'

Around 6 a.m. on Jan. 5, ICE agents knocked on the door of a New Brunswick home asking for someone named "Rodriguez." When the family inside refused to open and said no one by that name lived there, ICE agents forced their way in with guns drawn, said 14-year-old Anel Nieto, who was inside.

Anel, who is a citizen, said immigration agents yelled at her and her father and told them to throw themselves on the floor. Five U.S. citizen children were in the home, the family said. Anel said she started crying and her father was consoling her with his hand when an agent allegedly told him to stop.

"My dad tried to lift his head and (an officer) put (his) foot on his neck and his head hit the floor. He had a bruise and I started crying more," Anel, a ninth-grader, said in Spanish. One officer pointed a gun at her mother, who was holding her 5-year-old sister, a U.S. citizen. Her 62-year-old grandfather was handcuffed and then released, according to Jorge Torres, founder of the ICE Free New Jersey campaign. The mother and grandfather are undocumented.

"I was very scared, I was crying. I was shaking a lot, I couldn’t talk well," said Anel. "When I talked, my voice sounded that I wanted to cry." Agents took her 21-year-old uncle, German Nieto-Cruz, into custody; he had a legal work permit under one of President Barack Obama's executive actions, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA.

Phillips said Nieto-Cruz was taken into custody because of suspected gang activities and his work permit was cancelled after his arrest. He said agents followed protocol, which does not include breaking down doors.

Photos provided to The Asbury Park Press by immigrant advocates show a broken hinge and cracks in the door frame and wall of the News Brunswick property.

"We understand (ICE) has to do their jobs but not in a way that breaks civil rights," said Teresa Vivar, director of Lazos America Unida, an immigrant rights group.

Eugene Espinosa, a longtime Hispanic community leader in Lakewood, said he has heard reports of recent ICE activity in that community as well, with homes and workplaces being targeted.

“A lot of them now, they're trying to stay inside the house. They’re in fear,” said Espinosa, service access coordinator for the Lakewood office of the Puerto Rican Action Board, a human services organization.

In Freehold, 25-year-old Viridiana said immigration agents and local police entered her apartment without permission and arrested her nephew after handcuffing her and throwing her to the floor in front of her two U.S. citizen daughters. Viridiana, who has a legal work permit but declined to give her last name out of fear, was released without charges.

Her nephew, Jaime Martinez, 25, was taken into custody Thursday. Phillips said Martinez was detained as a “priority one enforcement," meaning someone who is convicted of an aggravated felony, a felony, involved in a criminal gang or suspected of terrorism, according to an ICE report. He said officers received consent to enter the apartment.

Freehold raids

Policy to stay the same

White House officials said this week the Department of Homeland Security was prioritizing removing undocumented immigrants with criminal records and recent border-crossers.

“At this point, our policy will remain the same,” said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest during a briefing Monday, adding that the idea is to prioritize “the deportation of felons over the separation of families.”

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Phillips said the national operation to deport newly arrived immigrants mostly from Central America who had exhausted their asylum claims was not occurring in New Jersey. He said ICE has not found any immigrants that fit those criteria in the state. At least 121 undocumented immigrants who crossed after May 2014 have been taken into custody, mostly from Georgia, Texas and North Carolina.

"All ICE enforcement actions are targeted against specific individuals," said Phillips of the actions in New Jersey. "Our officers are doing their jobs, they are following leads, they are following sources, investigations, some have been in place for months, years."

In 2015, 1,900 immigrants were arrested and deported in the state. Ninety percent of the cases involved criminal activity, said Phillips.

Advocates: Know your rights

Juan Pachon, deputy communications director for U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, denounced the actions in a statement Tuesday after a "contentious" call with the Department of Homeland Security.

“Senator Menendez today raised the issue of immigration raids in New Jersey with DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson. Whether it is considered part of a specific operation or an everyday enforcement action by ICE, the bottom line is Senator Menendez is completely opposed to targeting women and children for a fast-tracked deportation, especially if they have not been granted access to legal counsel or meaningful due process," said Pachon.

Advocates continued to urge awareness among communities, advising people not to open their doors when ICE comes knocking.

"The powers of ICE agents to act without a warrant," said Freehold immigration attorney John Leschak, "do not include the power to search a home without a warrant."

"ICE officers are allowed to arrest an immigrant without a warrant but only if they have reason to believe the immigrant is in violation of US immigration laws, and is likely to escape before an arrest warrant can be obtained," he added.

Shalom added that sensitive locations such as churches and schools are "strongly disfavored" as places of arrests in an ICE memorandum. "Undocumented folks have a constitutional right to attend schools and not be scared by government authorities," he said.

"I don’t think it's just," said Anel of the way immigration agents took her uncle. "I think the way they did it, they could have done it differently, they didn’t have to do it with force and make us go on the floor and scream at us."

Staff writer Shannon Mullen contributed to this report. Karen Yi: 732-643-4277; kyi@gannettnj.com