Thread: ICE detains 3 more in Greensboro

ICE detains 3 more in Greensboro (Video)

• By Nancy McLaughlin nancy.mclaughlin@greensboro.com
• 8 hrs ago

Guadalupe Jocelin Cruz Lopez gets emotional as she discusses her husband’s arrest during Thursday’s press conference in support of three local immigrant men who were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday in Greensboro. Guadalupe has a young child to take care of and another baby due this week while her husband is being detained by ICE.

• Andrew Krech/News & Record

GREENSBORO — As they spoke of federal immigration officials picking up their husbands earlier this week, one of the wives, due to give birth any day, tearfully rubbed her stomach and the moving baby. Another passed out and had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital.

The two were among families, clergy and others who gathered in the parking lot in front of a Mexican eatery to denounce the rising numbers of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests of people without criminal records. Supporters carried signs that said “Keep Our Families Together” and “ICE is a Real Threat” and asked for help supporting families left behind without their husbands, fathers and wage earners.

“We are witnessing the stress and the fear in the immigration community,” said the Rev. Julie Peeples of Congregational United Church of Christ, whose church last month gave sanctuary to a woman who was under the threat of deportation.

Peeples and others in the crowd pointed out how especially cruel they found Tuesday’s arrests of Adrian Balderas Plata, 40, of Mexico; Raul Ortiz Garnica, 21, of Mexico; and Jeovany Argueta-Garcia, 39, of El Salvador. The three men, who lived in northeast Greensboro, were on their way to construction jobs shortly before 6 a.m. when ICE trucks surrounded their vehicle. Agents were looking for another man, but detained them instead.

“He isn’t a criminal,” Guadalupe Jocelin Cruz Lopez, 18, said of Garnica, her husband of two years. “Now my babies are without a father.”

Cruz Lopez says she briefly spoke to Garnica, who was separated by glass, when she arrived at the Forsyth County Jail.

He, Plata and Arguenta-Garcia are presumably awaiting transfer to an immigrant detention center in Georgia.

Plata’s wife, 48-year-old Susana Martinez Anaya, was taken away by ambulance before she could speak. Anaya appeared to be overcome by the moment.

According to ICE, arrests are up nearly 40 percent since January, with an average of 400 arrests across the country every day. Five men, each with children in Guilford County schools, were detained here in April on their way to work.

There is a sense among immigration advocates that ICE is taking a more aggressive approach. Several recent high-profile cases involve separating parents from their children.

“This should matter to all of us,” said Andrew Willis Garcés, of the American Friends Service Committee, which is rallying people in communities to speak up against what the organization sees as unjust immigration policies. “Look out of your window at your neighbor’s house and imagine what would happen if one parent was suddenly gone.”

ICE officials say they are simply abiding by the law, even if their actions follow tougher rhetoric by the Trump administration.

ICE spokesman Bryan Cox pointed out that even while officers may have a specific list of people to be arrested, they have the right to detain others during those searches.

http://www.greensboro.com/news/local...9fafe5c9c.html

"As they spoke of federal immigration officials picking up their husbands earlier this week, one of the wives, due to give birth any day, tearfully rubbed her stomach and the moving baby."

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Ohhh....boo hoo hoo

Go rub your belly in Mexico

Fast track the pregnant one out of here...her husband can join her on their soil after his is processed.

I am sick to death of the sob stories! WE didn't force them to start families ( want to bet they're collecting all kinds of benefits already?), they knew there was a good chance of them being deported.

All 3 of those men arrested had CONSTRUCTION jobs, no way there weren't DOZENS of Americans ready willing and able to do those jobs. Add another crime to the list. They were picked up in a vehicle, seeing as NC doesn't allow illegals to have a license add ANOTHER crime. Without a license how do you get insurance and tags? Add another crime.

I'm sure the wives will be crying about what good upstanding men their husbands were, sorry in my book upstanding people do NOT live lives of crime. So whem wifey says my husband isn't a criminal... YES HE IS! And there's a long list of crimes being committed.

NO sympathy from me. These people should know actions have consequences! So when Daddy gets deported ship the entire family with him! We are NOT responsible for them