The head of ICE defends his agents’ heavy-handed approach during raids: ‘They and their families have received death threats on social media’

Todd Lyons, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), on Monday defended the harsh tactics his agents employ in raids against immigrants across the country. Whether these raids take place in broad daylight on the streets of a sanctuary city, inside a state prison, or in an immigration court, far from the public eye, hundreds of agents from various federal agencies are carrying out what Donald Trump has called the largest deportation operation in the country’s history.

Lyons has advocated for the agents, who operate in plain clothes with their faces covered and, often, in unmarked cars. “I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” the official stated at a news conference in Boston, Massachusetts.

The ICE official claimed that activists against Trump’s immigration policies in Los Angeles filmed and posted on social media the faces of ICE agents who carried out a series of arrests of undocumented immigrants in the California city. “They and their families have received death threats on social media,” Lyons said.

The discomfort surrounding these operations is becoming increasingly evident. Todd Gloria, the mayor of San Diego, said he was “deeply upset” by a raid that ICE agents carried out Friday afternoon at Buona Forchetta, a popular Italian restaurant in the city. The actions by ICE officers, who allegedly arrived with an arrest warrant, became a viral scene that made the rounds on social media.

Diners and residents surrounded the unmarked ICE vehicles and shouted in protest at the officers who carried out the raid, which resulted in the temporary detention of a dozen kitchen employees and the establishment’s manager, Renato Ametrano. The officers were forced to use flash-bang devices to disperse the protesters. The owners of the restaurant chain, which has seven establishments, ordered them closed until Wednesday in protest.

“Federal actions like these are billed as a public safety measure, but it had the complete opposite effect. What we saw undermines trust and creates fear in our community,” Mayor Gloria said in a statement released Saturday.

Lyons did not directly address the events in San Diego. Instead, he boasted about the numbers from the raids that ICE conducted in May in several Massachusetts cities, in which nearly 1,500 people were apprehended. The agency reports that approximately 790 are facing criminal charges, representing 54% of those detained. “A significant number of the foreign nationals detained had committed offenses such as drunk driving or sexual offenses, were suspected of homicide, or were fugitives from other countries trying to evade justice,” he announced.

Protected by Justice Department officials, Lyons criticized sanctuary cities for turning their backs on raids that detain undocumented immigrants. “It would be easier for them to cooperate in getting their most dangerous criminals handed over to federal authorities instead of releasing them. That way, we wouldn’t have to go into the cities looking for them,” he declared.

The official made it clear that ICE will continue to act as it has in recent weeks. “This operation has proven that we need to do more,” he argued. And they will do so with the support of other federal agencies such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), diplomatic security agents, and U.S. Marshals.

The case of Marcelo Gomes

During the news conference, authorities justified the arrest of Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, an 18-year-old high school student. This young man’s arrest, which occurred this weekend, has caused a stir in the town of Milford, southwest of Boston. He is not a criminal, but rather an exceptionally bright student with a good grade point average and a talent for sports and music, and he was in a band that was scheduled to play at the school’s graduation ceremony.

“We went looking for someone else, and unfortunately, we detained him,” Lyons admitted. The ICE official emphasized that, despite Gomes Da Silva’s talents, “he is in the country illegally.” According to his account, federal authorities stopped a vehicle registered to Marcelo’s father, the real target of immigration authorities. Inside the vehicle was not Marcelo’s father, but his son, who is now in a detention center awaiting deportation back to Brazil despite having been in the United States since he was six years old.

Leah Foley, the federal district attorney for Boston, who took office upon Trump’s return to the presidency, has taken a harsh stance against immigrants despite the fact that just over half of the 1,500 detainees had criminal records. “These are individuals who didn’t simply cross the border, but rather crossed a line, endangering the safety of a community. They are not immigrants, they are criminals,” she stated. But names like Marcelo Gomes Da Silva’s continue to underscore the excesses of the administration’s immigration policies.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition