A spokesman for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement said that rumors of immigration checkpoints or sweeps in Boulder are false, and aside from “routine,” the agency is not conducting any operations similar to ones seen in other parts of the country last week.
“All reports of ICE checkpoints and sweeps are false, dangerous and irresponsible,” said ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer. “These reports create mass panic and put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger. Any groups falsely reporting such activities are doing a disservice to those they claim to support.”
The Daily Camera received an anonymous tip on Wednesday that ICE agents had been seen at the San Juan Del Centro apartments in Boulder and had stopped at least one resident and asked him how long he had been in the country.
The Boulder Valley School District also sent a note out to parents on Wednesday that a false rumor had circulated that some school administrators were advising immigrant students to stay home over fears of a possible “immigration enforcement action” on Thursday.
Neudauer said that ICE agents has recently participated in “recurrent enforcement operations conducted on a larger scale” in other United States cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago.
“Anything going on today in Colorado that is done by ICE is strictly routine enforcement,” he said. “I’d stress that rumors of checkpoints or ‘sweeps’ are false. Those terms imply indiscriminate enforcement — something we don’t do.”
Neudauer said that he could not definitively say that ICE agents had not been at the complex on Wednesday afternoon.
“Our officers aren’t required to report their activities to me in advance and it’s late enough in the day that if they are there conducting a routine arrest I wouldn’t want to bother them,” he said. “Their focus needs to be on the streets and their job, for safety reasons for all concerned.”
A false rumor that spread on social media in Longmont earlier this month sparked fears that ICE agents were stopping immigrants and asking for residency paperwork or proof of citizenship near Trail Ridge Middle School.
President Donald Trump’s signing of three immigration-related executive orders — including one targeting “sanctuary cities” that don’t cooperate with federal authorities on immigration and one regarding his much-touted border wall with Mexico — has caused anxiety among some immigrants.
Sonia — who agreed to speak to the Camera on condition that her last name not be used — came to the United States illegally when she was 9 years old, and her adopted country is the only one she really knows.
“Most of the Latinos are scared, because we don’t know what our future holds,” she said. “We don’t know our future in Mexico either, because we came here for a better future. It’s difficult to even think about it.”
Now 27, Sonia is in the country legally under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a policy started during President Barack Obama’s administration that allows undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children to remain in the country on a temporary basis.
Sonia is worried, however, because on Wednesday, immigration officials detained a 23-year-old man in Washington state who had been in the country under DACA, and Sonia, who doesn’t really know anyone in Mexico, isn’t sure if she will be next.
Her husband, who also came to the country illegally, found himself on an immigration detainer a few years ago following a traffic stop, and he could possibly be deported following a court hearing in March. She said they had to come up with a $5,000 bond for him to remain free pending the hearing.
“If he gets deported, I would have to stay here, unless Trump says something different,” she said. “I got DACA about a year ago. Mine will expire in July. Everything depends on what decision Trump makes.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story
John Bear: 303-473-1355, bearj@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/johnbearwithme
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