Bushwick found itself at the center of a widely-circulated notice regarding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids over the weekend. The rumors flying around Facebook and other social media outlets mentioned home raids, roadblocks, and checkpoints.
In a memo from ICE obtained by DNAinfo, the agency confirmed that about 40 people were arrested in the most recent raids last week. The memo also noted that 95 percent of those people had previous criminal convictions.
In a statement issued today, Make the Road New York (MRNY), a local immigrant and community rights organization, highlighted their condemnation of recent ICE activity which increasingly points to arrests made of people who do have legal authorization to work and live in the United States granted by the federal government.
Antonio Alarcon, a DACA recipient and Youth Organizer for MRNY stressed that they are encouraging community members to document and report any activity such as roadblocks or checkpoints. So far, they have not been able to independently confirm that ICE or the Department of Homeland Security are employing those tactics.
DNAinfo also reported one confirmed arrest in Bushwick of a 30 year-old man from Puebla, Mexico who had been deported 10 years ago but reentered the country five years later according to Immigration Defense Project lawyer Genia Blaser. There is no information yet about how the man was arrested.
There will be a rally at the Department of Homeland Security (201 Varet St. in Manhattan) organized by MRNY tomorrow at 5 p.m. to demand the release of Daniel Ramirez Medina, a DACA recipient with no criminal record detained in Seattle by ICE.
Regardless of who was arrested and under what circumstances, the raids are creating ripples of anxiety in Bushwick, the rest of the city, and the country at large. Local organizations such as Churches United for Fair Housing are organizing Know Your Rights workshops in order to help attendees figure out how to respond to a precarious and ever-changing situation.
We will update our readers with information regarding these workshops as it comes to us.
Featured image courtesy of MRNY’s Facebook.