Updated March 18, 2017 at 1:55 p.m.
Immigration officials arrested two more undocumented Migrant Justice advocates Friday afternoon, leading to protests that drew hundreds of people.
Enrique Balcazar, 24, and Zully Palacios, 23, were arrested and detained by undercover Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during a traffic stop on Shelburne Road in Burlington, said Will Lambek, a spokesman for the Vermont-based human rights organization.
Migrant Justice members arrived on the scene to see both Balcazar and Palacios being loaded into an ICE van. Neither had a criminal record, according to Lambek.
The incident marks the third ICE arrest in three days. On Wednesday, 23-year-old Cesar Alex Carrillo was detained on his way to a Burlington courthouse to respond to a misdemeanor DUI charge. The charge was later dismissed, though Carrillo was not present at the hearing.
On Friday evening following the latest arrests, nearly 100 protesters gathered outside the ICE offices in St. Albans to denounce the detentions, said Lambek. Migrant Justice also organized the march and rally on Saturday in Burlington to call for the release of Palacios, a Peruvian national, and Balcazar, from Mexico.
A few hundred people gathered for that event and marched along Church Street. “Not one more!” they chanted, in a procession that ended outside the federal building on Elmwood Avenue.
The organization has collected 1,300 signatures on a petition demanding Carrillo’s release, according to a Migrant Justice news release.
Balcazar and Palacios were not permitted to consult an immigration attorney who tried to reach them Friday night, Lambek said, though the two did communicate with their respective consulates. Lambek noted that he had not been told where Balcazar and Palacios were being held.
Balcazar came to the U.S. from Tabasco, Mexico, with his parents six years ago to work on a Vermont dairy farm. Now, he works as a community organizer and spokesman for farm workers around the state. Lambek said Balcazar consulted with Attorney General T.J. Donovan on immigration issues and helped craft a document called the “Guidance to Vermont cities and towns regarding immigration enforcement,” which the AG released ahead of Town Meeting Day.
An ICE spokesman put out a statement at noon Saturday about the latest arrests:
On March 17, Special Agents with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), with assistance from ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), conducted a targeted arrest of a female individual in Burlington, Vt., who entered the U.S. legally, but overstayed the duration of her visa by nearly a year. While making this arrest federal agents also encountered Jose Enrique Balcazar-Sanchez, who was also found at the time to be in violation of U.S. immigration laws. Both were arrested and are in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.
Lambek decried the arrests as retaliation for Balcazar’s activism. In September, when activist Miguel Alcudia was arrested, immigration agents allegedly put out a warning for Balcazar.
“They said, ‘Enrique’s going to be next. Tell him to watch out,'” Lambek said. “It was a clear threat.”
“We wholeheartedly denounce this escalation of immigration enforcement,” Lambek added. “It’s an attack against an entire community and an entire state.”
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Congratulations to all of the commenters who through hard work and perseverance had the good fortune to be born in the United States – you really earned your smug sense of superiority!
The Statue of Liberty has nothing to do with immigration. It’s not called the Statue of Immigration. It has to do with LIBERTY and there can be no liberty without secure borders. Maybe do some research, huh? The BS plaque at the base of the Statue wasn’t put there until 20 years later and it was in conjunction with a campaign rally.
Illegals have committed multiple crimes.
1) If they’re in the country illegally, they’re criminals by default, and
2) If they’re paying taxes, they’re guilty of identity theft, and
3) If they’re NOT paying taxes, they’re guilty of income tax evasion.
So, don’t EVEN try to give me the “otherwise law abiding” crap. It’s not rational and it doesn’t work.
Vermont’s dairy industry runs on labor provided by people who have come here from Mexico and other countries. Ask any dairy farmer what would happen to their business if all Mexicans were deported. Dairy workers work incredibly hard. One man I met was working 10- to 12-hour shifts seven days a week. That means zero days off. That speaks to a shortage of labor. I challenge anyone posting about deporting people to go work a week at a dairy farm, or send their kids to do it. Or find some people who will. The people currently working on dairy farms are the people best suited to the job – they show up, they work hard, and they deserve rights.
Don’t disguise racism as anti-immigrant sentiment. If you hate the idea of immigration, talk to a person of Abenaki heritage. If you hate the idea of brown people in Vermont, do us all a favor and start working on changing that attitude, because it doesn’t help anyone, least of all Vermont’s dairy farms and dairy workers.
Particularly here in America, this kind of attitude is immoral and illogical. Everyone who isn’t a full-blooded native here is either an immigrant themselves, or descended from immigrants. It makes sense to want conditions set upon immigration… but if “illegal immigrants” are a problem, then we need to start looking at better ways to streamline the process of people earning legal status here. Remember, immigrants to this country (legal or otherwise) are those who had the courage, the determination, and the ambition to leave their world behind in the pursuit of something better, and frankly, America would benefit from more people with that kind of energy walking around.
Anyone not a full blood descendant of their residential land’s native inhabitants is an illegal immigrant. If people didn’t mix we’d be inbreeding. We’re intelligent and resourceful enough to take care of everyone and cooperate better than this. I like people who make the world around them better in some way and I don’t care where they came from.
You people ever heard of the statute of liberty? You people ever heard of the first amendment? You people want wasted resources on arresting people who are simply working hard and trying to make the world a better place? I know your answers, so I call you unamerican.
Via con deos! It’s been nice; it’s been real. But it hasn’t been real nice.
Thank you ICE, for doing your job. People who are in the US illegally are subject to deportation at any time. A word of advice – self deport.
Illegals are breaking the laws of America. They’re here illegally. All the lawyer’s, immigration groups and judges can’t stop deportation of illegals. If your illegal leave now or get deported and take you kids with you