Secret Immigration Raids in the D.C. Subway

“They were dressed in blue and their jackets had words on the back,” according to the Mexican immigrant. “They asked whether they could talk with me for a minute and if I spoke English. When I said ‘no,’ they found a Puerto Rican agent and she asked for my documents,” says Maria, visibly shaken by the experience.

Several workmen, also Latino, started to buy subway tickets, she recounts, but when they saw the agents, they ran out onto the street and were able to get away.

María and another young man they had just caught were quietly taken to an administrative office in the Metro station where seven more detainees were being held.

Although they were treated well, she says, some were in such nervous shock that their whole bodies trembled.

“Since I didn’t have documents, they asked how long I’d been in the United States and where I was from. The information I gave them did not match what the computer said, so they detained me for three hours,” says the woman, whose immigration papers are currently being processed.

No such luck for Juan, a Guatemalan immigrant who was detained around the same time the same Monday in the Rosslyn Metro station in Arlington, Virg.

After finishing his day’s work, Juan started home in Washington with a group of fellow construction workers. He was buying his ticket from the machine when some agents tapped him on the back, took him aside and asked him questions before moving him out of the station.

They put him in a white van with black tinted windows parked on the street, where ten other detainees were waiting.

More