Videos appear to show immigration raid in Massachusetts, local group says laborers targeted
By Louisa Moller
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Massachusetts (WBZ) — Cellphone videos appear to show an immigration raid in Chelsea, Massachusetts Tuesday morning. Community members said federal agents wearing police vests and masks showed up in Bellingham Square around 6:30 a.m. and began taking people into custody.
WBZ-TV reached out to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for comment but the agency has not responded.
“Major immigration raid”
“There was a major immigration raid impacting laborers with local construction companies. We witnessed that multiple members of the community were detained. Many are here under asylum claims,” said Alex Train, who claims he personally witnessed some of the raid.
Train is the Chief Operating Officer of La Colaborativa, a local social services organization, which decided to shut its doors for the day as a result of the raid.
“To assure the safety of all the community members who come here on a day-to-day basis,” Train said.
Bellingham Square is the commercial epicenter of Chelsea, which is just five miles from Boston. The raids happened around the corner from the restaurant where Bernardo Arteaga has cooked and prepared food for 15 years.
“I worry about the community in general because there are people from every country around the world,” Arteaga said.
Chelsea resident Leo Ubelasquez said he takes no issue with ICE arresting dangerous criminals.
“Listen, there’s a lot of people doing bad stuff out there. Go get them! Not people that work hard. Not people who are thinking about businesses, creating opportunities for other people,” he said.
“Madness and completely inhumane”
Train does not believe that is what happened. He says he knows a young asylum seeker who was detained Tuesday morning.
“One of our community members, 19 years of age, is here completely legally, a Latino male. He is detained and nobody knows his whereabouts right now. It is madness and completely inhumane,” Train said.
Chelsea and Somerville jointly sued the Trump administration in February, asking a federal judge to block any efforts by the White House to withhold federal funding from so-called “sanctuary cities.”
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