Claim they were returned after being processed
By Maria Sacchetti
The Boston Globe
January 12, 2010
PROVIDENCE - Federal agents detained dozens of Guatemalan immigrants en route to shovel snow at Gillette Stadium last week, and then drove many of them back to the stadium to work, the immigrants said yesterday, giving their fullest account yet of the operation.
Yesterday, dozens of the immigrants poured into the Guatemalan consulate, a two-story red brick building near Federal Hill, wearing thick sweatshirts, baseball caps, and worried faces, since they are here illegally and now facing possible deportation. But they and their advocates said they are workers, not criminals, who had left poor villages in the hope of finding better lives for themselves and their families.
In interviews at the consulate, where they sought legal assistance, the workers, most of whom live in Rhode Island, said they had cleared snow at Gillette last Tuesday, and were heading back to work early Wednesday in four vans when federal agents pulled them over.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained 58 people during the operation as part of a search for fugitives, including criminals, who had been ordered deported. Seven people, including people with criminal records such as domestic assault, are being held in Bristol County jail.
The immigrants said the rest were taken to a nearby police station, fingerprinted, photographed and released, pending an interview with immigration officials to determine their legal status, before they were driven to the stadium.
“They brought us back to work themselves,’’ said Vicente Avila, 43, who said he lives on $200 a month so he can send as much as $800 a month to his family, including five children, in Guatemala. “They told us if you want to go to work, you can go to work.’’
Matthew Chandler, deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that carried out the operation, declined to confirm that federal agents drove the immigrants to Gillette or to describe the agency’s policy on transporting immigrants after such operations.
Gillette officials said they had hired an outside agency to take care of the shoveling, and that outfit was responsible for verifying the legal status of the workers.
The stadium fired the vendor in the uproar after the raid, which raised questions about security at one of the region’s premier sports complexes just before the Patriots playoff game Sunday. The vendor is All Stars Labor Inc. of Dorchester, according to a source with knowledge of the work agreement, but company officials could not be reached late last night.
Among those seeking free legal advice yesterday were a 16-year-old girl who recently arrived in the United States, a 16-year-old boy who has been here three years, and a woman who is five months’ pregnant.
Consul General Carlos Escobedo told the immigrants he would help them without charge. They would respect the laws of the United States, he said, but also seek ways they could stay in the country legally.
“We are here as a government to support you and help you,’’ he said as lawyers prepared to work with each immigrant. “You are not alone.’’
The immigrants said they left Guatemala because the civil war there left the country’s economy in tatters.
The workers said they did not know the name of the company that hired them. They had received phone calls from friends telling them to show up at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Providence at 5 a.m. for work and that they could earn as much as $8 an hour.
Catarina Alonzo, 25, said she left her daughter with her mother in a poor village eight years ago to join relatives in the United States. Alonzo sends money home for food.
Alonzo said she had worked at Gillette last year as well, cleaning up trash, half-eaten food, and plastic cups, once in the driving rain. “What are you going to do?’’ she said in Spanish. “I am poor. I went to work.’’
Next to her sat a shaken Tomasa Larios, 16, who arrived late last year. She said she jumped at the chance to earn some money at Gillette, but after she was detained, she was too scared to return with the others. “I was really affected by it,’’ said Larios.
The women said the operation was mostly calm. Immigration agents told them to put their hands on the seats, took the vans, and drove them to the police station.
The raid was in contrast to the dramatic 2007 raid in New Bedford, where the factory owners and 361 immigrants were arrested, some spirited quickly to Texas for deportation. But the Foxborough operation still stunned diplomats and advocates because officials had hoped the federal government would focus only on criminals, which is the agency’s stated priority, and not on ordinary workers with no previous convictions.
The Obama administration has said it favors legislation that would allow the nation’s 12 million illegal immigrants to apply for legal residency, but it has also vowed to continue enforcement action to show that the federal government will keep the borders secure.
Miguel Angel Ibarra, the vice minister of foreign affairs in Guatemala, said in an interview Saturday that he was surprised that deportations of Guatemalans had not slowed under President Obama, despite severe poverty, a drought in some areas, and widespread unemployment in the central American nation. He called for a halt to deportations.
According to federal statistics, deportations hit a record high in the fiscal year that runs from October to September; Obama took office at the end of January. Some 387,790 people were deported last year, up from 369,221 the year before.
Steve Kropper, cochairman of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform, said the government is enforcing the law.
“We love legal immigrants and all those people who waited in line for years,’’ he said. “People who bypass the system, we want . . . to discourage them.’’
Maria Sacchetti can be reached at msacchetti@globe.com.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/12/immigrants_say_agents_drove_them_to_gillette_after_being_detained/
