Immigration attorney on ICE raids: ‘People are looking over their shoulders, people are truly terrified’

Officials from ICE Enforcement and Removal Operation confirmed enforcement action in the vicinity of Van Orden Avenue, but that's all they would say.

News 12 Staff

Jul 16, 2019, 2:27 AM

Updated 1,754 days ago

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Immigrants across the nation says they are living in fear after this weekend's ICE raids in small and large cities.
Immigration attorneys tell News 12 at least one person was detained Monday after ICE agents made raids in the vicinity of an apartment complex on Van Orden Avenue in Spring Valley.

Immigration attorney Vince Sykes says ICE's ongoing raids throughout the Hudson Valley should target only those people with final deportation orders, but he says that's not always the case.

“Individuals that were probably in removal proceedings and not necessarily having a final order of deportation,” he says. “People are looking over their shoulders, People are truly terrified.”

ICE did confirm with News 12 that the Spring Valley raid did occur but did not specify if anyone was detained.
According to immigration advocate Luis Yumbla, the raid at 17 Van Orden Ave. was to find one Ecuadorian immigrant who no longer lives there.

Yumbla added that immigrants should never speak to agents unless they have a search warrant or papers showing the immigrant's name and address.
“The most important, yes, the most important, is don't open the door,” he says.

Sykes says that without a warrant, they don't have a right to enter the premises or open an door.

Immigration experts tell News 12 that ICE agents cannot conduct random raids or checkpoints asking for identification or documentation proving citizenship.
Local immigration advocates say ICE also made raids in Newburgh Tuesday, and in Monroe and Middletown Monday.


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