Thread: ICE Agents Arrest Mexican in Ithaca

Ann Johansson / The New York Times

ICE agents made an arrest in Ithaca on Tuesday afternoon, a spokesman for the enforcement agency confirmed to The Sun. An ICE agent in Calexico, Calif. is pictured above.

4 hours ago


ICE Agents Arrest ‘Unlawfully Present Mexican National’ in Ithaca

By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs


U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested a Mexican national in Ithaca on Tuesday, an ICE spokesman and a Cornell student who said she witnessed the arrest told The Sun.
ICE officers “arrested one unlawfully present Mexican national today in Ithaca, following a routine targeted enforcement action,” Khaalid Walls, regional director of Northeast communications for ICE said in an email. “The action, in which that specific individual was sought, occurred without incident.”

The arrested person is currently detained at Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, “pending removal proceedings,” Walls said.

A Cornell student who lives in Ithaca and spoke to The Sun on condition of anonymity said she witnessed ICE officers arrest a man on Cascadilla Street near the corner of Fourth Street on Tuesday afternoon between 1 and 2 p.m.

The student said an unmarked vehicle with three men, at least one in an ICE vest, pulled up to the curb on Cascadilla Street on Ithaca’s Northside, before two men exited the car and asked the adult man for his name before placing him under arrest.

“Two guys stepped out and asked, ‘Is your name José?’ to which he replied ‘Yes,’ and ICE agents in vests nabbed him,” the student said.

There was no struggle and the man was compliant with the officers, according to the student, who said she was walking to class at the time. The ICE spokesman could not immediately confirm the witness’ details.

Nearly 200 people on Tuesday night indicated that they planned to attend an “emergency rally” to get “ICE Out!” after The Sun first reported the arrest. The rally is scheduled for 5 p.m. at the Bernie Milton Pavilion in downtown Ithaca on Wednesday.

Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick ’09 said Ithaca is still committed to maintaining its sanctuary city status, which stems from Common Council’s unanimous vote on a resolution in February.

“We’re still a sanctuary and we’re still committed to it,” Myrick said in a brief phone call. “We get no pleasure from seeing ICE operate inside our community, but being a federal agency, we can’t stop them.”

Ithaca passed the sanctuary city resolution in February, prohibiting city employees, including Ithaca Police, from inquiring about a person’s immigration status except in situations in which the question is necessary, such as providing benefits that are contingent upon citizenship or when citizenship status is vital to a criminal investigation.

The resolution also requires IPD to notify an individual before responding to requests from ICE or Customs and Border Patrol to detain or interview a person. An Ithaca Police spokesman said he was not aware of the arrest.

Myrick said no city officials have been in contact with ICE and said he did not have any additional information.

Prof. Stephen Yale-Loehr ’77 J.D. ’81, immigration law, said Ithaca’s sanctuary city legislation does not in any way prevent ICE from making arrests inside the city’s limits.

“Being a sanctuary city simply means that the city won’t provide information to the federal government about people they suspect are deportable,” Yale-Loehr told The Sun. “Immigration enforcement agents may learn about a person’s immigration status and location through other means, such as information in government databases. If so, they don’t need local officials to help them find and arrest the immigrant.”

“The presence of ICE in our community reaffirms the need for the actions the City of Ithaca and Tompkins County took in February to limit law enforcement and municipal employee interaction with that agency,” said Alderperson Ducson Nguyen, who represents the second ward where the arrest took place. “ICE isn’t welcome here, and I’d recommend they save their fuel and time driving all the way from Buffalo to harass our residents.”

Yale-Loehr noted a recent Washington Post article showing that immigration arrests rose 32.6 percent in the first weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency when compared to the same period in 2016.

Arrests of immigrants with no criminal records more than doubled in that period, according to statistics reported by The Post.

The student who said she witnessed the arrest said the man being arrested asked her to tell his boss what had happened.

“He turned over his shoulder and the last thing he said was, ‘Call my boss at Saigon Kitchen and tell them what happened,’” the student said.

A woman who answered the phone at the Vietnamese restaurant on West State Street said she was not aware of any arrest and that the eatery’s manager is out of town and would return on Wednesday.

http://cornellsun.com/2017/05/02/ice...man-in-ithaca/

Cornell was my dream school for Vet School! I don't even recognize it anymore...

.U.S. Charges Arrested Ithaca Immigrant for Allegedly Possessing Forged Document

By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

The United States on Wednesday charged the Mexican citizen arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Ithaca last week with allegedly violating federal law by possessing a forged registration card, which could mean up to 10 years in prison for the 32-year-old if he is convicted.

The government accused José Guzman-Lopez, whose name was previously reported as José L. Guzman, of “knowingly possessing an alien registration card knowing it to be forged, counterfeited, altered, or falsely made,” according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.

ICE’s arrest of Guzman-Lopez on May 2 in Ithaca, which has declared itself a sanctuary city, brought sharp condemnations from local residents and officials. Mayor Svante Myrick ’09, at a rally after the arrest, said the detention was “about exploiting those who are already afraid” and that “ICE is targeting sanctuary cities.”

Khaalid Walls, an ICE spokesman, said last week that Guzman-Lopez is a Mexican citizen and had been arrested for “illegal entry.” The 32-year-old, who friends said has lived in Ithaca for years, has been held at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia.

The criminal complaint filed Wednesday brought new details about the ICE operation to light, showing that officers with the Enforcement and Removal Operations division of ICE “conducted surveillance” of a residence on Cascadilla Street on the morning of the arrest, according to a sworn affidavit by Joseph Radley, a deportation officer.

When officers “observed Guzman exiting his residence and walking along Cascadilla Street, towards Fourth Street” around 11 a.m., they placed him under arrest for allegedly violating the Immigration and Nationality Act, Radley said.
Much of the affidavit confirms what a Cornell student who previously spoke to The Sun on the condition of anonymity said she witnessed on May 2, when Guzman-Lopez was arrested. The student, who is an Ithaca resident, said she saw ICE officers exit an unmarked vehicle before arresting Guzman-Lopez.

“Two guys stepped out and asked, ‘Is your name José?’ to which he replied ‘Yes,’ and ICE agents in vests nabbed him,” the student said hours after the arrest.

Sofia Hu / The Cornell Daily Sun

A banner on the Seneca Street parking garage on Tuesday, protesting the arrest of José Guzman-Lopez

During the arrest, officers found “a counterfeit alien registration card” in Guzman-Lopez’s wallet, according to the complaint and a joint statement from Richard Hartunian, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, and Thomas Brophy, the acting field office director for ICE in Buffalo.

The registration card bore an A-number — a unique number assigned by the Department of Homeland Security to people when they immigrate to the U.S., allowing them to legally obtain employment — that was valid, but that government records showed had not been assigned to Guzman-Lopez, Radley said in the affidavit.

If convicted of violating the federal law prohibiting forging documents, Guzman-Lopez faces up to 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.

Guzman-Lopez may also face deportation proceedings, which would likely take place after the criminal case concludes, a spokesman for the attorney’s office, Richard Southwick, told The Sun. Assistant U.S. Attorney Miroslav Lovric is prosecuting the criminal case, according to the statement.

Guzman-Lopez made his initial appearance in the federal criminal case before a U.S. magistrate judge in Syracuse, who ordered that he be detained in U.S. Marshal’s Service custody, authorities said. He was previously held at a detention facility in Batavia, and it was not immediately clear on Wednesday evening if he was still at that facility.

The attorney who represented Guzman-Lopez in 2013 when Ithaca Police accused him of stabbing a man in Ithaca told The Sun on Wednesday that he has still not been able to speak to his client directly.

Cameron Pollack / Sun Photography Editor

Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick ’09 stands beside Carolina Osorio Gil, director of ¡Cultura! Ithaca, at the May 3 protest of ICE’s arrest of Guzman-Lopez.

The Ithaca assault charge is still pending in Tompkins County Court, which Lance Salisbury, the supervising attorney for Tompkins County’s Assigned Counsel Office previously said could signal a lack of evidence, among other things.

A Tompkins County prosecutor offered Guzman-Lopez a plea deal last week, The Sun previously reported, but Jeffrey Walker, Guzman-Lopez’s attorney, has not been able to relay the terms of that deal to his client.

Walker said on Wednesday that people in touch with Guzman-Lopez had passed along the attorney’s number and that he was mailing the terms of the deal to the facility in Batavia.

“I can only hope that, perhaps, by bringing finality to the open charge here in Ithaca, Jose may be able to return [to] the community sooner as opposed to later,” Walker told The Sun in an email last week, before the federal criminal charge were filed.

The City of Ithaca’s Common Council and the Tompkins County Legislature passed sanctuary legislation restricting local officials and law enforcement agencies from cooperating with ICE in most cases and prohibiting them from asking about a person’s immigration status except in situations deemed necessary.

Wednesday’s charge by the government also come one day after a false report of a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer at Cornell spread fear and concern across campus, showcasing faculty, student and staff concern for undocumented students after last week’s arrest.

http://cornellsun.com/2017/05/10/arr...ars-in-prison/

Yesterday Cornell went into full panic mode because of a false report of ICE on campus!

http://twitchy.stage.townhallcloud.n...hours-of-fear/