MAY 27, 2016 4:30 PM
Charlotte mom, first grader taken in latest series of immigration arrests


Agents reportedly make six family arrests in Charlotte over three weeks

Charlotte teen arrested last week, a month after he turned 18

Advocates say teen part of unaccompanied kids who fled violence



Rev. Rodney Sadler in center, leads a prayer for family members of the NC6 during a protest at at the Department of Homeland Security in Feb. 29. The six teens were part of the first round of local immigration arrests by federal agents.. Robert Lahser rlahser@charlotteobserver.com

BY MARK PRICE
msprice@charlotteobserver.com

Five months after Charlotte’s Hispanic community erupted in protests over the arrest of six North Carolina teens, federal agents have launched another round of arrests involving Central Americans, this time women and children living undocumented in the city.

Six families have been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the past three weeks, say immigrant advocates. This includes Maritza Alcantara Argueta, 36, who was picked up Wednesday at her Charlotte home with two sons, ages 3 and 7. The 7-year-old was a first grader at Winterfield Elementary School, family members said.

However, it’s a seventh arrest involving another teen that has immigrant supporters poised for more protests.

Luis Alfredo Chicaj-Orozco, 18, is believed to have been among the thousands of unaccompanied Central American minors who crossed the border in 2014-15. Most came without adult companions, seeking asylum from countries plagued by gang violence and some of the world’s highest murder rates.

Chicaj-Orozco was arrested Wednesday exactly one month after he turned 18, which is not unlike the cases of six other N.C. teens who arrested in January and February. Those six teens, who supporters call the NC6, remain in custody in Georgia’s Stewart Detention Center, 400 miles south of Charlotte.

Reuters news agency reported this month that “leaked” federal documents showed a new ICE operation had been launched to deport hundreds of Central American mothers and children found to have entered the country illegally.

However, U.S. immigration officials say the latest Charlotte arrests are not a new operation, but simply a continuation of what began in January when the NC6 were arrested for staying in the country after a judge ordered them to leave.

Argueta, a Honduran national, and her two children had overstayed their order of removal by two years, ICE says. And Chicaj-Orozco, a Guatemalan national, had received an order of removal in March, ICE said.

Atenas Burrola, an immigration attorney with Legal Services of Southern Piedmont, says she began hearing reports of local arrests three weeks ago, when counselors at a family detention center in Texas called to say two Charlotte women and their children were among the latest arrivals.

“We only found out about those two by accident,” said Burrola. “I don’t want to terrify people, but we just don’t know how many people have been picked up (in Charlotte), and rumors only feed the fear.”

Legal Services of Southern Piedmont is working on to educate immigrant families on what constitutes an unlawful arrest by federal agents, including lack of proper paperwork.

“They do not have to open the door if ICE does not have a valid judicial warrant,” Burrola says. “Immigrants are often so terrified, they react to the fear and open the door. They don’t realize they can exercise their rights.”

A series of immigrant protests were staged last spring after the NC6 were arrested.

Among the six are two Charlotte teens: Pedro Arturo Salmeron, 18, and Yefri Sorto-Hernandez, both of whom had been issued orders of removal by immigration judges.

Sorto-Hernandez’s arrest earned national attention when federal agents were accused of using schools and bus stops to corral teens not legally in the country. As a result, immigrant families began keeping their children out of school to avoid arrests.

ICE has denied using such tactics, noting it was coincidental that teens were arrested on the same block as a school bus stop or in a nearby parking lot.

“We stress that these operations are limited to those who were apprehended at the border after January 1, 2014, have been ordered removed by an immigration court, and have no pending appeal or pending claim for asylum or other humanitarian relief under our laws,” said Bryan D. Cox, spokesman for ICE in the region.

“We stress also that in its enforcement operations, ICE will continue to adhere to existing guidance to avoid the apprehension of individuals at sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals and places of worship, except in emergency circumstances.”

The teens included in the NC6 have all hired new attorneys and are working to have their bids for legal status or asylum re-introduced.

Some of the teens have complained that their original cases were lost due to bad legal advice.

ICE officials don’t dispute that, but say the teens and their families had 30 days to appeal the verdicts and didn’t, leaving federal agents no choice but to make an arrest.

Pedro Arturo Salmeron says he was told by his original attorney that he didn’t qualify for asylum, despite the fact that a cousin was killed and dismembered in Central American.

Salmeron says he fled his home country of El Salvador because he was in fear of his life.

Salmeron’s new attorney, J. Britt Thames of Macon, Ga., told the Observer he is taking the opposite approach of the previous attorney, pushing for asylum with the help of a death certificate for the murdered cousin.

Byron Martinez of the immigrant advocacy agency Unidos We Stand has been working to get all six teens released into the custody of their families while the legal process works itself out. ICE has resisted, because some admitted they were hiding from federal agents when they were caught.

Martinez has also been seeking investigations into claims that some of the teens have been physically assaulted while being arrested or during their incarceration at the facility.

Mark Price: 704-358-5245, @markprice_obs

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