As federal immigration agents continue a mass deportation campaign under the Trump administration, the level of violence seen during immigration arrests has escalated. That's led to increased scrutiny over the tactics of ICE officers, and whether they've been respecting the constitutional rights of the people they've arrested as well as bystanders documenting their operations.
Javier Luengo-Garrido is an organizer with the ACLU of Massachusetts. He wants to remind people that the rights enshrined in the Constitution are for everyone in the nation, not just U.S. citizens.
"We need to be really clear with that, because I think that some people may be highly selective in applying those rights," Luengo-Garrido said. "No, those rights are independent, if you are a U.S. citizen or not."
Ever since ICE expanded its deportation campaign, more and more people are recording and documenting their operations, as well as possible civil rights violations. That became even more common after two U.S. citizens were killed during an extremely unpopular enforcement surge in Minneapolis last month. Luengo-Garrido says Massachusetts residents who want to record ICE agents should make situational awareness a priority.
"In Massachusetts, you have the right to record law enforcement. Fantastic. Everybody has these phones," Luengo-Garrido explained. "So the recommendations to be able to record law enforcement is always be aware of your environment. You don't ever want to get too close to when enforcement is happening because you don't want to find yourself in the middle of what's going down."
Being aware of your environment means knowing when, and when not to reveal sensitive information about a person being detained, like their name, address, or the names of their family members. He says law enforcement may also be recording, and looking for ways to identify immigrants.
"So asking personal information, or sensitive information may not be ideal," he stressed. "Disclosing names of relatives, or personal information or addresses or phone numbers may not be a great idea. So we need to be cognizant of that."
Luengo-Garrido also recommends that anyone filming an ICE operation narrate their recording, by verbally recounting things like the number of agents and the types of vehicles they're using. He says things can get tricky if ICE agents push back against the right to record. There have been reports of agents snatching phones from bystanders and threatening arrests.
He suggests staying calm if confronted, and disabling things like facial and fingerprint recognition on phones with those features. He says anyone using a phone to record should instead use a six-digit alphanumeric pass code.
"You don't want your phone being taken away and being forced [to use] face recognition on you. You don't want your fingerprint being forced to unlock your phone," Luengo-Garrido explained. "You don't want to be confrontational. You don't want to put yourself in the middle of enforcement. You don't want to put yourself between the law enforcement agent and the person being enforced."
He also points out that people who are being targeted by ICE for detention or deportation are at a much greater risk of having their rights violated than bystanders. Once someone is detained, they are often in a legal gray area, where proceedings and deportations can happen rapidly. There have been widespread claims of human rights violations at ICE detention facilities. Luengo-Garrido recommends that anyone at risk of deportation take steps to fully understand their personal immigration situation.
He says that's more difficult after someone is arrested, and possibly shipped out of the state.
"It is important that everybody, before anything happens, talks to an immigration attorney and has a legal evaluation," Luengo-Garrido said. "It's really important to do it because if I'm detained, I'm processed and shipped outside Massachusetts, not even talking about even more so outside New England, an evaluation is going to be really hard, right? And a lot of decisions need to happen based on that legal evaluation."
For those with families, he says pre-planning is even more critical. Local organizations — like the Pioneer Valley Workers Center, or Neighbor2Neighbor — can help immigrants create family-preparedness plans in the event of detention. That can mean determining a source of income if the main breadwinner is arrested, or who will care for children if their parents are taken away.
Luengo-Garrido says anyone who thinks they were the victim of a civil rights violation, or witnessed one, can submit a complaint with the Attorney General's office, or seek legal counsel with an organization like the ACLU.
