The Portuguese states that dozens of agents entered the company “without any warrant” and that “discriminated against Hispanic employees”: “The white people who were there didn’t ask anything.”
A Portuguese-owned company, located in the North American city of Newark, was the target of an operation by the Immigration and Customs Service (ICE), which culminated in the detention of three employees.
Businessman Luís Janota explained to Lusa that around a dozen ICE agents entered the company late Thursday morning, “without any warrant”, and “started asking workers for identification papers”.
Of the three employees arrested, none were Portuguese, said Janota, owner of Ocean Seafood Depot, a company dedicated to selling seafood in Newark, in the state of New Jersey, in the northeast of the country.
“We’ve been in business for 26 years and we’ve never had anything like this. Never, not even close. (…) They want to close the borders and I agree. But if they want to take someone, if they want to deport someone, let them deport the people that are bad.
“I’m left without my employees. Now I’ll have to look for other people. I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen to them. I asked if we could do anything for them and what the agents told me was that they could only leave after payment of 30 thousand dollars [28,7 mil euros] each one,” he said. Luis Janota.
There are about 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to Department of Homeland Security estimates from 2022, the most recent year with available data — although Trump has claimed, without evidence, that the real number is about twice that.
“EThey were discriminating against Hispanic employees”
Newark, which is home to one of the most significant Portuguese communities in the United States, is one of several “sanctuary cities” in the country, where there are local and state laws that protect the undocumented population and which end up being a refuge for people who have not yet managed to regularize their identity. situation.
In the operation in Newark, Luís Janota believes that there was discrimination by ICE agents.
“I think they were discriminating against Hispanic employees, because they were suspicious of the documents presented by the warehouse manager, an army veteran, who is Hispanic. But the white people who were there didn’t ask anything. Me and They didn’t ask other people anything. That doesn’t make sense. Either you ask everyone or you don’t ask anyone”, criticized the businessman.
The situation was addressed by Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who condemned ICE’s action.
“Today [quinta-feira]U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided a local establishment in the city of Newark, detaining undocumented residents, as well as citizens, without presenting a warrant,” Baraka said in a statement.
“One of the detainees is a U.S. military veteran who suffered the indignity of having the legitimacy of his military documentation questioned. This egregious act is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees ‘the right of the people to be safe in their their persons, houses, papers and goods, against unwarranted searches and seizures'”.
Dand according to the mayor, “Newark will not stand by while people are illegally terrorized”, admitting that he is willing “to defend and protect civil and human rights”.
Luís Janota also told Lusa that he believed the operation was based on a complaint.
Border ‘Czar’ warns that anyone who is there illegally could be detained
On Wednesday, Tom Homan, the border ‘czar’, as the person responsible for the borders in the new Donald Trump Administration is known, stated that anyone illegally in the United States could be detained by ICE agents and, eventually, , deported.
However, he explained that, in this first phase, efforts are concentrated “on the worst first”, referring to criminal immigrants who represent a “threat to the security” of society and the United States.
On Thursday, the US Government announced a new directive with the aim of carrying out the promise of “mass deportations”.
“The directive gives law enforcement officials from the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Marshall Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons authority to investigate and detain illegal aliens,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
“Mobilizing these law enforcement officers will help fulfill President Trump’s promise to the American people to carry out mass deportations. For decades, efforts to find and detain illegal aliens have not been adequately resourced. This is an important step toward fixing this problem,” said Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman.
