Some Manchester residents are raising concerns about the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in their community after a group of what appear to have been ICE officers detained a man near a city courthouse Monday and took him away in unmarked vehicles.
ICE arrests have tripled in New Hampshire since January, amid an enhanced immigration crackdown by the Trump administration. Monday’s arrest in Manchester is not the first time that someone has been detained near a New Hampshire courthouse. A man named Arnuel Marquez Colmenarez was tackled in the elevator of a Nashua courthouse by unidentified federal officers minutes before a scheduled arraignment.
In Manchester, the man being arrested on Monday morning was identified as Jose Davila in court documents. He was at the courthouse for hearing to respond to a charge of Driving Under the Influence.
After leaving the courthouse, a video shot by Anthony Poore, head of the New Hampshire Center for Equity and Justice shows Davila’s detention. He was detained by a group of five men wearing vests marked “ERO,” which stands for “Enforcement and Removal Operations,” a subdivision of ICE. The men were not masked, did not answer when Poore asked where they were taking the man and drove away in unmarked vehicles.
ICE could not immediately be reached for confirmation, but an ICE locator shows that the man is in ICE Custody at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility in nearby Massachusetts.
As a resident, Poore said seeing the arrest made him feel less safe.
“It's tough to feel safe in an environment like this where at any point in time, any masked or unmasked individual could come and snatch you off the street,” he said. “As a person who loves this city for all its good and for all its bad, I simply don't feel safe, and I shouldn't have to feel unsafe in my own home.”
No Manchester police officers appear on scene in the video, although the department could not immediately be reached for confirmation. Mayor Jay Ruais could also not immediately be reached for comment.
The people in the ERO vests also did not give local law enforcement a heads-up about their plans, according to Sheriff Brian Newcombe of Hillsborough County. He recently signed an agreement with ICE that would train his officers to carry out some federal immigration functions.
Even though the agreement with ICE is in place, Newcombe said that a weeklong training with ICE has not yet taken place. However, he said fully participating in the program would help keep the community safer.
“I think it's important for us to take part in this program to make sure that we're not letting dangerous people out on the streets, and we can keep the citizens of our county safe,” he said.
Newcombe said that there have been a few cases where his agency encountered someone with an active warrant or detainer, but had to let that person go because ICE could not pick them up.
Longtime immigrant rights advocate Sarah Jane Knoy from the Granite State Organizing Project called the apparent ICE action a “kidnapping.” She added that the action is part of a pattern of ICE using court records to identify people to detain – especially people who are going to court for low-level violations like parking tickets or DUI charges.
Knoy said anyone who might be a target for ICE should go to court with a few U.S. citizens. Although citizens can’t interfere with an ICE action, they can take video, and tell the person’s family what happened.
“I believe that the community needs to know that this is happening,” she said. “This is happening to people who have work permits and who are trusted and loved community members, and we can't allow it to go unnoticed.”
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