Latest news with #SiembraNC
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Wives of NC men detained by ICE speak out against ‘Border Protection Act'
Families of North Carolinian men detained by ICE visit the state Legislative Building on March 5, 2025. (Christine Zhu/NC Newsline) Women living in Winston-Salem whose husbands were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement visited the state Legislative Building in Raleigh on Wednesday to share their stories with lawmakers. The visit comes a day after the state Senate approved and sent to the House a bill dubbed the North Carolina 'Border Protection Act.' The legislation would require state agencies like the Department of Public Safety and Highway Patrol to enter agreements with ICE to assist with immigration enforcement. Immigrant rights advocacy groups like Siembra NC, which organized Wednesday's meeting between the Winston-Salem residents and members of the House Progressive Caucus, refer to the legislation as the 'Family Separation Act.' 'We care about you, your family, your loved ones, and we will do everything we can,' Rep. Deb Butler (D-New Hanover) told the women and their children. Cynthia, 34, said in Spanish that her husband Juan Rosa Meza and four other men were heading home from a residential construction job in Sarasota, Florida when they were stopped by Florida Highway Patrol. Officers told the men they were stopped because they hadn't entered a weigh station, although they were traveling in a nine-passenger work van, not a semi-trailer. The men were transferred into ICE custody and all but one — who was deported on March 3 — are currently held at the Krome detention center in Miami. Meza does not have a criminal record. 'My one-year-old son just keeps asking where his dad is, he wants him to take him out to play on Saturdays like usual,' Cynthia said in a statement. 'It's so hard without him.' Having moved from Mexico to the U.S. at age 10, Cynthia has been permitted to see her husband — with whom she's lived in Winston-Salem since 2015 — but she's hesitant. In Meza's absence, Cynthia must care for the rest of their family and doesn't want to put that at risk. 'I feel very scared, because I'm a DACA recipient,' she said in Spanish. At Krome, Meza reported inhumane living conditions in a short phone conversation with Cynthia. More than 60 detainees are housed in a single room designed for less than 20. With a lack of beds, they are forced to sleep on the floor. Conditions are unsanitary due to a lack of cleaning supplies, toilets being placed near sleeping quarters — in open spaces without privacy — and a lack of access to medical care. At least a dozen detainees have forfeited their right to an immigration court hearing since their arrival two weeks prior, accepting deportation to escape the life-threatening conditions at the facility, according to Siembra NC. It's a similar story for another man, Jasua Josabe Sierra Carranza, who traveled to Columbia, South Carolina for a roofing job. On the way back home to Winston-Salem, his work crew was pulled over for speeding by York County sheriff's deputies. Carranza was held for a misdemeanor 'no-operator permit' charge and placed into ICE custody, his wife Sindy Lopez, 21, told lawmakers in Spanish. He is now at Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, where he awaits an immigration court hearing. Carranza has no criminal record. Similar to Krome, Carranza faced harsh and dirty conditions at Stewart. Due to overcrowding, he slept on the floor until the deportation of another detainee freed up a bed. Lopez and Carranza arrived in the U.S. two years ago, fleeing violence in Honduras, Lopez said. They have a three-year-old-son together. 'I keep telling him his dad is just at work, I'm afraid he'll stop eating if he knows the truth,' Lopez said in a statement. Stateline reported on Wednesday that, despite concerns about racial profiling that gave rise to numerous lawsuits during previous similar campaigns, many state and local officials across the country have recently signed up to aid the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts. The number of state and local agencies planning 'task force' agreements with the feds to do street-level immigration enforcement has reached 121 departments in 12 states: Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Apparent immigration arrests raise concern, questions in Durham neighborhood
Alisa Cullison was out walking her dog at 7:30 a.m. Thursday when she said she saw three vehicles 'casing' a section of her north Durham neighborhood. One was a Nissan with tinted windows, another a pickup with Georgia plates. They seemed out of place in Northgate Park, an older middle-class neighborhood of modest homes. Her suspicions were confirmed two hours later, when the vehicles converged on a car with two of her neighbors, both young men from India. It was a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid, said Kelly Morales, a co-director of Siembra NC, an immigrant worker organizing group that has been advising immigrants and others how to respond to federal agents. She, Cullison and others spoke about the incident at a news conference Thursday afternoon. Another neighbor, Emily Ingebretsen, said she saw a dozen men, in tactical gear and wearing masks, exit the vehicles and take the young men along with a third Indian native from their home and drive away. They said little, but one of them wore a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol badge, she said. 'Why are you wearing that mask, I can't see your face, why aren't you identifying yourself?' Ingebretsen said she asked one of them. 'And he said, 'If you were doing something in your community you might want to cover your face too.' To which I said, 'There's nothing that I would do in my community where I would ever hide my identity.'' None of the speakers at the conference would identify the men, saying they were concerned for other family members in the neighborhood. They do not know why the men were arrested, if the officers had a judicial warrant, or where the men were taken, they said. 'We know that the goal of this as Tom Homan and Stephen Miller have both said is to inspire people to self deport by creating an environment of panic and chaos,' said Nikki Marin Baena, Siembra's other co-director. Homan was appointed 'Border Czar' by President Donald Trump and Miller is Trump's homeland security adviser. ICE didn't respond late Thursday afternoon to questions about who the men were, why they were taken into custody and where they were taken. Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams said no authorities provided information to him before or after what happened. 'I'm looking into it,' he said by phone Thursday evening. 'I'm in discovery mode myself right now.' Siembra NC says it has trained more than 400 people to be 'ICE Watch verifiers' in nine counties over the last two months. It has two trainings scheduled in the next two weeks, in Durham on Feb. 22 and in Greensboro on Feb. 27. Trump made illegal immigration a top issue during the campaign and has promised to purge the country of millions of immigrants who are in the U.S. without proper authorization. Critics say the president's plans will lead to overly aggressive tactics across the country that will create fear and chaos in neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. Cullison and Ingebretsen, who have been trained by Siembra, said what they saw Thursday morning made them feel less safe in their neighborhood. 'It does scare me, it felt like those offices were acting outside the bounds of law,' Ingebretsen said. In the Spotlight designates ongoing topics of high interest that are driven by The News & Observer's focus on accountability reporting.
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
ICE raid rumors leave Triad Latino communities on edge
(WGHP) — Pres. Donald Trump's immigration crackdown has many people in the Triad's Latino community on edge. Many are worried about whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, or other law enforcement officials will come for them next as part of his executive order. Trump's 5 biggest moves on immigration so far Hector Rivera, an organizer for the nonprofit Siembra NC, didn't let a chilly Monday afternoon stop him from spreading awareness about ICE raids at a popular market. He started passing out pamphlets to keep Asheboro's Latino community informed. 'We've heard there's a lot of problems with rumors going around, that there's immigration over here and immigration over there, so we're also helping our community dispel those rumors by spreading verified information,' Rivera said. Rivera and his group of volunteers are separating fact from fiction for Latino community members, especially after ICE arrested nearly 1,000 people nationwide in raids on Sunday. News of these arrests has caused panic in the Piedmont Triad. 'Right now people are trying to not live with fear. They know that they still have to go to work and that they still have to take their kids to school, and they're trying to continue doing that,' said Elena Jimenz. Jimenz has lived in Asheboro for more than 20 years. She says she's fearful of potential ICE raids. 'We haven't heard them. I haven't heard them yet but I am hearing the rumors,' Jimenz said. As a documented immigrant from Mexico, Jimenz says she's doing her due diligence by keeping her neighbors educated. 'It makes me sad and feel a little bit worried as well, but I'm still here to bring this information to the community about their rights,' Jimenz said. Those rights include what to do in situations if an individual has encounters with immigration enforcement. Rivera says, if anyone comes to your car or house, you're not obligated to open the door unless they have a judicial order. And if you have questions call the Siembra community hotline. 'Continue to live without fear. That's the message that we're spreading to our people too. If we continue to live in fear, they're going to win because we want to continue to live life because we're not doing anything wrong as community members of Asheboro or North Carolina,' Jimenz said. Siembra NC also has a hotline that can be reached by calling (336) 543-0353. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
